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Google Developing Database Service
QuantumT writes "Ars Technica has the details on the unannounced Google
Base service that will allow anyone with a Google Account to post information and other types of data into a massive, Google-run database. Ars believes that the company is
gearing up to take on eBay and Craiglist, which makes sense given the Google Payment service that is in development. Google has commented, saying, 'This is an early-stage test of a
product that enables content owners to easily send their content to Google. Like our web crawl and the recently released Google Sitemaps program, we are working to provide content
owners an easy way to give us access to their content.' There's a few screenshots as well."
Perhaps more importantly, this move positions Google as potentially the pre-eminent publishing house with an inherent built in search engine. Anything that goes into the database will be "intimately" searchable. From my perspective as a bioscientist, the ability to be able to search journal articles not just for text, but also for image data or graph data would be absolutely huge.
Google has previously posted their position about Google Print here where they documented superficially their desire to enable people to search for "books". However, more importantly, it is the content within the "books" that will become more ubiquitous and more available.
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base.google.com pictures
In broad outlines, and incrementally, Google seems to be replacing the need for a centralized computer/filestore with an ubiquitous web fileservice. While this may not replace the need for an OS and applications, if I could get access to my information and files securely frome everywhere that I can see a google server it really does change the computer paradigm.
I have nothing to hide. So, why are you spying on me?
Ars believes that the company is gearing up to take on eBay and Craiglist
Ok, what else is google going to take over? People think they're going to take on Microsoft,Ebay,Craigslist,ISPs,..... The list goes on and on. I'd like to see Google take on the Oil companies next! Maybe they can offer free Gasoline.
No Sigs!
It would be nice if the PhDs at Google could concentrate on getting good, reliable and consistent results out of their search engine rather than playing around with features like because it "seemed like a good idea at the time". Remember Google Answers anyone? That was a white elephant. I think this is going to be a white elephant too.
As a commercial enterprise, it seems that Google is in danger of forgetting exactly what its core business really is.
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They've said in the past that the next big step in search is searching databases that other people own. This would seem to be the interface to make that possible. i.e. rather than web crawling to attempt to harvest data, they have people push it to them. Sidesteps the copyright and robots.txt problem. If you want your data to be searchable then you push it to Google.
Our intelligent designer has never created an animal that we couldn't improve by strapping a bomb to it.
Why would I want to put my information under your control?
Oh, I just submitted the following story:
It seems that Google is going to announce a new service called Google Base today at the invite only Google Zeitgeist conference. At the moment, we only have a few screenshots and a pretty interesting discussion at threadwatch.org. Conflicting rumors have pointed to a new Google database, classifieds like Craigslist, an Ebay contender or just another way to submit URLs.
If this data is ever going to become useful, Google will needs to create a system for moderation of informational accuracy and usefulness. Their page-ranking mechanism is a good start, but I just don't trust it to tell me that the first few results on a subject I'm researching are accurate.
This is why Google also needs a trust network. They certainly could begin to leverage Orkut to do this. I'd give more credence to an information source if I knew that someone in my trust network also gave credence to it.
Google doesn't seem to have a unified and communicated vision. Sure, they can hire the most talented engineers and they can keep cranking out the coolest toys, but what would actually move the internet forward is a way to combine all of those toys into a single, simple platform. For example, combine Orkut and page ranking. Rank my search results differently than someone else's because they have different trust relationships. In my opinion, Google has had only one real hit so far, and that's Google Earth. With that much corporate intelligence, I'd like to see Google doing more.
Now you just need to figure out how to marshall data into canonical fields for each major use scenario, mark those schemas prominently for easy reference, and police the system against abuse like spam, scams and plagarism.
Judging by the state of your core search system, this will take anywhere from seven years to several centuries.
Google may not be aiming to become Big Brother, but they're certainly aiming to provide every single service they possibly can. Why they would do this is a pretty simple question to answer. They make most of their money through advertising, yes? And to make even more money off of said advertising, they sell data to advertisers, yes? The more services they provide, the more users they rope in, and the more - and more kinds of - data they collect to sell or use to their advantage as a business. Their business model thus far has proven to be virtually flawless and extremely profitable.
However, it is becoming apparent to me that they have other aims. Google is no longer the friendly, ethical being it once was. It has begun to evolve into something sinister. Google is expanding so rapidly and absorbing so much mindshare, both by raiding Silicon Valley and by garnering support from the Open Source community, that they now have the money and the human resources to do anything. Additionally, they can undercut any competitor, and they will. Expect to see these in the future:
* A Google ISP with free or extremely cheap connectivity worldwide.
* Google Phone, likely as a form of VoIP.
* Google TV, both on and offline, cable and wireless.
* Google Radio, both on and offline.
* Google Web Hosting.
* A Google ASP, providing applications on demand.
* Google Publishing, publishing digital content on demand.
* A Google record label.
* A Google printing service, printing books and newspapers on demand.
And much, much more.
This all sounds great, but the thing is, Google is poised to strike out at virtually every industry in the world that has anything to do with the transmission and distribution of any kind of information. They are going to be more than the 'Next Microsoft', as some here have put it. This will be a supermassive media monopoly; a black hole of information services from which noone can escape, with which noone can compete. They claim to support openness, but that only goes as far as what software and hardware you can use to access their services. In short order, they will be the only service providers around in many, many fields. That, in my opinion, is worse than not having a choice of how I utilize said services.
Call me a senseless fearmonger, but they really have their ducks in a row, don't they? The Authors Guild lawsuit aside, they're ready to go. They're getting ready to do some really huge things, at that, and in executing their plans, they could completely dominate the entire media and telecommunications industries within a matter of a few short years by simply undercutting all of their competitors with extremely cheap or free services, with the sale of valuable information - not subscriptions - as their bread and butter. It's possible, and they're proving that it is also feasable, and very profitable... but only if you're Google. I'm sorry, but replacing a few heaping handfuls of ugly monopolies around the world with one gigantic, unstoppable global monopoly is not a good idea, even if it's Google.
Let's not forget that the path to Hell is paved with good intentions. If Google does what I anticipate they will do, billions of dollars will be lost, thousands and thousands of people will be without jobs, and worst of all, we will all be forced to rely upon one single entity for many services essential in our day to day lives. That is always a very dangerous situation to be in. One can hope that the heads of Google are actually more sensible and less power hungry than this, and know when to stop. Alas, the word 'stop' does not appear to be indexed in Google's vocabulary. We all may be in for one very bumpy ride.
As I said in another comment, an example of a problem I sometimes have is that I have some content that I would like to share with the world, but no decent way of doing it. Sometimes I can mesh it into Wikipedia or something... but other times there's no place to put it. Or maybe putting it somewhere else is complicated. Like I have a recipe or a cool trick to solve a problem in Linux. I could make an account with some recipe website or with Linuxforum.org or whatever, but that's a pain. I just want to make the information available to people. I could make my own mini-website and host it, but no one would ever find it.
But if GoogleBase exists, and I just upload content, and let Google index it for me, I'm done. I can refer friends to it (either via URL or even by describing it, and letting them just do a search for it). I can even upload (non-private) files that I often need to refer to... and then they are always accessible. In fact, since GoogleBase will probably have a private mode, I can use this as a network drive that is accessible anywhere in the world. Not only that, but it does automatic backups and is automatically indexed and searchable. So for semi-private documents that I always need access to, it's great. I post my CV and then I can casually refer somewhere to where it is located. I don't have to pay for webspace.
Many people use the GMail File System hack so that they can use their GMail account as if it were a hard drive. Google is formalizing it so that we can have access to data easily. I think this solves alot of problems for alot of users. The tradeoff is that I get free web-hosting and even free network storage, as long as I agree to have them index it. Many people are willing.
Currently it's very easy for Google to be non-evil -- Google search, Google maps, GMail are all low-consequence activities. Once real money is involved this will change. Doing payment services will require a portfolio of automated processes that will, at times, appear both unfriendly and profit-motivated.
I wish them luck in the service, but fear it is the end of the Google honeymoon.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
Google may not be aiming to become Big Brother, but they're certainly aiming to provide every single service they possibly can.
And so the transformation of Google into Yahoo is almost complete... I actually had the pleasure of predicting this to a couple of Google managers a few years ago when I was car pooling with them back up 101. I was the only non-Googler in the car. The conversation eventually got around to how to add more services while maintaining the "simplicity". I predicted that eventually, all services would end up doing the same kind of portal crap as Yahoo/AOL/MSN/Excite, etc. remember, those services became portals before the word "portal" was ever invented. I also predicted that the real rot would set in after the IPO, when Google attracted a lot of people from other companies who wanted to add that sort of stuff, because that was how they had done it in their previous jobs. And that was what the market expected. And once you're a public fad stock, shareholders demand "growth" stories to keep the high valuation and want you to add functionality, no matter how orthogonal that growth might be to your core business. It's feature creep, writ large.
The rest of the trip was a bit frosty.
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