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GoogleBase launch
Submitted by acohill on Wed, 11/16/2005 - 11:55.
Google has announced a new service called GoogleBase. The "base" part of the word is from "database," which Google appears to be trying to co-opt. They probably hope to create a new verb, as in, "Let's look in GoogleBase," or "Let's GoogleBase it."
The intro page on the new service sounds nice, but it is not really any different than setting up a Web site. GoogleBase, in effect, is a free Web site service that is document oriented rather than page oriented. Google claims it is different because you can attach attributes to your content, but you can already do that on any Web page, although it takes some extra effort.
What Google is really promising is that any material you give to Google will get indexed more quickly than a standalone Web site. And by making the attribute, or keyword tagging easier for content owners, Google is able to more precisely target and attach ads to the displayed pages.
It is quite clever, in that it offers an easy to use service that accrues huge benefits to Google at the same time. What I found disturbing is that on the two pages that describe the service and its rules, nowhere did it say what Google would or would not do with the information. Publishing on your own Web site guarantees that you retain control of your information. It is not at all apparent what control you have, if any, once you place it on GoogleBase.
Here are some questions I would want answered:
- What if I want to take the document off GoogleBase? Can I do so? How? If I take it off, does Google retain a "cached" copy?
- What if I want to update or replace the document with something different? Can I do that? How?
- What if I don't like the ads being served? Do I have any control over that?
Make no mistake about it; Google is out to own all of the information in the world, and they are becoming less shy about saying so, although they cleverly use the words "searchable" and "indexed" to hide their intentions.
Impacting Google's advertising revenue?
From what I've seen, GoogleBase enables any of Google's current advertisers to cancel their paid search campaigns and instead just supply a classifieds datafeed.
Surely this will knock huge lumps out of their advertising revenue.
GoogleBase and ad revenue
That's a really interesting analysis, and you could well be right. If that does turn out to be the case, I suspect Google figures they will make up the difference by being able to more efficiently target that same information for a different set of ad placements.
GoogleBase, in return for "free" hosting, gets the user to give Google more and better keyword and content data about the information. That enables Google, over the long term, to be able to charge more for ad placement for companies with stuff related to that information.
It's extremely clever. But I think the issue of losing control of your own information does not justify the "free" value.
There is something else going on. By putting something in GoogleBase, you are effectively preventing it from being indexed by any other search engine, which is not at all desirable. So Google wins twice--they can target ads more precisely, and they lock information away from competitors.
GoogleBase
As much as I dislike google, googlebase is no big deal. There is a limit of about 2999 items right now. Like Froogle it will take time to reap any benefits from it. But, what the heck more listings on google anything is better, since their competition has defaulted. It is fairly easy to upload, but rather than experience with HTML etc you need to know a little about databases and spreadsheets. Items can be changed, deleted, edited. Who cares if an item is in the cache?
You will get a visit anyway. We may have been better off if Microsoft had bought them. At least we would have had some degree of social responsibility, ethics and morality; not to mention government regulation. Right now google is running wild doing anything they want, and the government does not seem to see or care that they have become just as much of a monopoly as microsoft. (names are in lower case not because I skipped 6th grade english, but to show a lack of respect)