Google Base Mayhem.

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Author: Peek, Robin1 robin.peek@simmons.edu

Last month Google quietly opened Google Base (or, as Google describes it, the service that will "help the world find your content") in beta--and the publishing community gasped (free advertising!).

The problem with starting up a database that is going to be crafted by the masses for free is that on opening day there isn't much to see. According to the FAQ file, Google Base will support "all types of online and offline information and images." Google seems to be making up the structure organically. There are basic templates to help users structure postings, and the site is simple. In fact, anyone who knows anything about databases would call it simplistic. But simple is what the self-publishing universe is all about. And, in the world of the Web, one could say that the self-publishers built this city.

But Google seems to have big visions 'for the type of content that individuals will clamor to submit to Google Base. The goal of the database, according to the company, "is to organize the world's information and make it universally useful and accessible. We encourage you to submit your item, whether it's your store inventory, collection of original poetry, or research paper on cancer receptors."

Now I have become a pretty hardened technology person over the years, so I don't shock easily. However, my first reaction to Google Base was a simple and startled "What?" But then I realized that giving people the ability to store their own data in a central database is the logical extension of the whole social publishing movement. If you can mount your own videos in Google Video (another new feature in Google Labs) then can adding your content to a database be far behind?

Even though Google Base opened with little fanfare, it is clear that folks are starting to populate the database--and with some curious results. After a lifetime of looking at professional photographs of food in magazines and books, it is a little disconcerting to visit the Recipes category and see that contributors are submitting photos of their finished dishes. I guess that's what you'd call truth in advertising.

The Comic Books category is an even wilder ride. Next to an advertisement selling Novelty Tie Pink Panther Inspector Clouseau MGM Hide and Seek in the Alley garbage cans!" for $7.95 is "My personal gallery of original art of american Comics," which contains screen shots taken from Robin Peek eBay. While I might (easily) nominate this as a case study in why people should not create their own database descriptors, we have to admit that eBay has somehow managed to make this wild system work.

A visit to the Jobs category reveals a different creature. It contains tens of thousands of items. While it does not (at least not yet) replicate all of the features available in Monster.com, it does have the Monster.com feel but, of course, without the Monster.com costs (or the costs of Boston.com, nytimes.com, etc.). This is not, as Martha Stewart might say, "a good thing."

Two companies, CareerBuilder.com and Step Up, worked with Google to prepare the Jobs section, which explains why the category was populated so quickly. And one can certainly see the attraction. Why fork over thousands of dollars to another site when Google will post your ads for free?

The categories at Google Base grow almost daily as users add new ones. But some of the original categories, such as Events and Activities, Products, Services, Vehicles, and Wanted Ads, look a lot like the classified section of a good old newspaper.

Classified Intelligence, a Florida-based consultancy group, detailed several Goggle patent filings, including ones that outline plans for Google Automat, a service that could tie into Google Base, and Goggle Purchases (formerly Google Wallet), an online payment system.

"It's crystal clear Google is planning for an all-out move into classified advertising," said Peter M. Zollman, founding principal of Classified Intelligence. "These patent filings and the disclosure of Google Base a few weeks ago show the company is actively preparing to offer free listings for cars, homes, jobs, and 'stuff,' even for merchants, among its services."

The challenge, and it is a challenge, is to determine how faithful the masses will be to the Web sites that have become the 2-ton gorillas in the room. Will Match.com devotees stay put for the value-added content, or will free be too enticing? Has eBay truly locked in its userbase? Neither Yahoo! nor Amazon.com was able to displace the company, despite their big names in the business.

But then again, Google is looking for research papers. Could Google become the institutional repository to beat all institutional repositories? Why fuss and muss with setting one up yourself when Google will tend to the chore for free? Let's face it; the leap from allowing users to search for academic content on Google Scholar to actually supporting the research itself is not that big.

I would not look at Google Base and discount it in its current state. After all, the product is in beta (although it does seem to be more in alpha). But Google treats beta as a long, long preview period. Broadway plays open and close in the time that Google takes a service from beta to its final version. And this is a company that has provided us with plenty of theater and drama. Moreover, the actors in this play are the Web self-publishers, who have turned out to be a particularly clever bunch. They built eBay, they built the blogs, and they could build Google Base.

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By Robin Peek

Robin Peek is associate professor at Simmons College's Graduate School of Library and Information Science. Her e-mail address is robin.peek@simmons.edu. Send your comments about this column to itletters@infotoday.com.