Slashdot Mirror
Google Base Launches
An anonymous reader writes "As announced on the Google Blog, Google Base has finally launched. According to Google, Google Base enables content owners to easily make their information searchable online. Anyone, from large companies to website owners and individuals, can use it to submit their content in the form of data items. We'll host the items and make them searchable for free."
But bad for private intranet sites. For anything where privacy is significant, the Google appliance (or Google mini) will still be in high demand. The
Mooniacs for iOS and Android
What exacty goes into base? As I've understood it everything is supposed to go into Google base, right?
Could wikipedia be imported to Google base?
Is it me or does it seem like Google is average 1 new service/product every 2 months or so. This is a scary pace. The part I am most amazed by is that ALL their services scale very well.
I wonder if Google will have any plans to create an API for base, or at least integrate it into their existing search API. It would be pretty neat to be able to create applications that would automatically submit the information for you, rather than having to perform the bulk-upload method that I suppose *could* be automated...
Thoughts?
If they release an api for this...holy crap. How incredibly useful. One could, say, write a content management system that runs on google base rather than mysql or whatever. Or who knows what other cool shit the hackers will come up with. This concept is SO powerful its kind of...freaky. So much of the internet could fit onto this one little idea.
Sig removed because it was obnoxious
I think this is a real issue. Like Wikipedia, this idea has great potential. Like Wikipedia, this will have many problems. What's to stop this from suffering under a heavy load of spam, honest mistakes, and deliberate mischeif?
Well, actually, this is not like wikipedia. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, so it is restricting itself in the kind of information and the way it is presented. My Honda civic car would not be relevant to Wikipedia (Pope Benedict's former Volkswagen however gained some relevance during it's ebay selling - so does the car of JFK during his Dallas visit).
And, of course, it is a wiki.
Google Base is not an encyclopedia and it is not a wiki. It is offering a much more flexible way of storing data while making it public - combined with the usual way of making it searchable in an easy way.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Larry: I've been trying to infer structure from web pages all day, and boy are my arms tired!
... everything. Just by the example details you can tell it's poised to kill craigslist's classifieds.
Sergey: Hey Larry, what if we could trick our users into supplying structure along with their data?
Larry: Why, we would rule the world!
[Larry and Sergey burst into song...]
~
But seriously, this is way cool. Here's where Google Base could go from here:
1. Allow more complex data types (the AJAX interface is beautiful and simple, but really limiting... maybe allow more complex types to be built through an API?) I'm thinking of structures and some kind of instantiation system.
2. Publish a really rich library of types. What they've got right now is a good start, but more common types will prevent people from creating redundant and not-quite-identical types. For instance, if there had been a "Slashdot geek" category, we wouldn't all have had to create our own when we entered ourselves into the 'Base after reading this headline.
3. Allow data to be restricted to groups of users. Google already has concepts of users and groups, so this is a no-brainer... a few customized viewing pages, and it could replace Flickr, Blogs,
(about the subject title... my cat wrote it just now when he jumped onto my laptop, and it seemed as good as anything I was about to come up with)
The details here seem rather scant. What search algorithm? Is this just like a normal database search? Or is there any way data can be searched using something like PageRank?
Because if this is just a normal database, meh, I could do that myself. But if I could in some way define a group of webpages and then perform pagerank-intelligent searches within that group, that would be a lot more interesting.
Are people allowed to define new "kinds" of information to search for, or only new attributes? And is Google Base available through a Google API like interface? Because I don't see anything about that on the site right now.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Apparantly you can link directly to a Google Base hosted image. This means basically free image hosting with virtually unlimited bandwidth. I wonder how long it will be until Google clamps down on this, if at all.
Here's an example.
Frankly, I'm more interested in when the API's come out for this thing. The kind of apps people will build that take advantage of this will be quite interesting. Hmm... Things might get pretty interesting pretty fast once the API's are out.
I can't figure this out just from the info on the site, but is this the sort of thing that lets you search on attributes (AKA metadata)? If so, it's like an idea I started implementing a few years back, which (due to lack of time) never really materialized.
:-)
The idea was that you could do things like: suppose you're looking for a PDA with certain features; say, a keyboard, no more than $ 200, and at least 320x240 screen size. Then you would go to the site, select the item type, and add constraints by selecting attributes from a list, then a relation on that attribute (e.g. equals, or greater than), and then select or enter a value. You would keep adding constraints until all of the ones important to you where there, and then click search.
The idea was to let any interested party add information to the system; "many eyes" would make sure that it was mostly accurate. I wasn't really sure this would work, but Wikipedia later went and kind of proved the viability of it. In the meantime, I had gotten the user interface and database backend to a usable state, but lacked the time to add all sorts of item types, including sensible metadata, and enter some sample information to kick start the system.
Nowadays, I just wait for Google to implement my ideas.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
While the semantic web people are arguing forever about ontologies and schemas Google go ahead and implement a practical way of adding meaningful metadata which real people can actually use.
Instead of having strict schemas which will never be quite right you can just add whatever attribute you like and see which attributes are popular for the type of entity you are entering.
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
In five years, Google will sell you CPU time to run your algorithms on their servers, connected to the largest well-organized database in the worlds, which updates itself in real-time from all over the world with RSS feeds.
:)
You first read it here
I just tired it, and you can jump in too. The water is fine! No expiration, ten images, no charge, searchable via Google. eBay had a good run. The use is, of course, to sell and buy stuff. There are other applications, but they won't be the important ones at first.
(||) Nehmo (||)
yes, yes, and yes. and neither are they, thats why they stuck it out in the wild, to see what happens to it. they're smart like that..
this is everything you (we!) can think of. all on a crisp clear white bckground. think geocities, but you can try and report the user if its spam/vandalism.
only limits seem to be:
-only 30 attributes per item
-no export, only import and display on google at base.google.
both of which might change
sneaky smart bastids.
.
. hmmm
It's worth noting that Google Base, among other things, duplicates core ebay functionality (listings for sale of goods and services), free of charge, as is the Google way.
Go Google!
hmm...