Google powers up online database
Published 9:00 pm Saturday, November 19, 2005
WASHINGTON – Conspiracy theorists who worry that Google is really just a beta-test version of the all-knowing Matrix now have more to fret about.
The Mountain View, Calif., company’s new, free Google Base site – launched Wednesday with minimal fanfare, like most of its initiatives – is just a big, Web-connected database. Unless, that is, it also turns out to cause the extinction of classified and help-wanted ads, eBay, Match.com and a great many other online and offline properties, up to and including the newspaper you’re reading.
In essence, this searchable storehouse of user-contributed material reverses the usual order of things in the Googleverse. Instead of people putting up Web pages, then quivering in anticipation until Google spots and searches them, Google Base allows anyone to type information right into Google’s computers – then tell Google what search queries should locate that content.
As a frequently asked-questions file states, Google Base can host “All types of online and offline information and images” (aside from such Google-banned advertising subjects as drugs, bombs and prostitutes). But Google has more specific uses in mind, and went to the trouble of creating a set of templates to help users create these types of postings.
These categories – “Course Schedules,” “Events and Activities,” “Jobs,” “News and Articles,” “People Profiles,” “Products,” “Recipes,” “Reference Articles,” “Reviews,” “Services,” “Vehicles” and “Wanted Ads” – happen to cover much of the spectrum of economic, cultural and social interaction.
For example, a hypothetical Google Base user could use this site to find a job, locate an apartment in his new city, buy a car there, get a date, learn a recipe to cook for her and pick out an interesting variety of concerts, movies and gallery openings for subsequent dates.
