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."

Name suggestion

[by Anonymous Coward]

G-Bay anyone?

Re:Name suggestion

[boomgopher (627124)]

A joke, but they'd be sued by eBay if they did. A Lego sales site [bricklink.com] with the name "brickbay" was ordered not to use any name with "bay" in it.

Pretty pathetic of eBay in my opinion.
And please no horseshit about "if a company doesn't defend their trademark... blah blah blahhhh" which has been repeated to death around here.

Content is king

[BWJones (18351)]

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 [blogspot.com] 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.

Re:Content is king

[ChrisGilliard (913445)]

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.

Is there a reason these journal articles could not be published on the web? If they were can't you get the same functionality you described by doing a google search? Google already indexes images, pdfs, xls, etc. Why does it need to be uploaded to Google's database? You can already think of the web as a big database in a way right?

Re:Content is king

[BWJones (18351)]

See my answer here [slashdot.org] for why. In short, there needs to be a way to structure certain "types" of data to optimize how you find what you are looking for.

Re:Content is king

[ozmanjusri (601766)]

Secondly there are metadata standards and ways of getting information out of files. There's the obvious title / author / subject tags in HTML, and equivalejnt in MS Word files, OpenDocument, Dublin Core, etc.

This is going to be the interesting part, and is probably why Google has been showing so much interest in Open Office/OpenDocument. When the pages of this web are XML served by a Google database, and the browser is an XML reader/editor based on OOo or equivalent, you have a much richer, more collaborative internet. A rich web, layered on top of the existing net.

Google will be in on the ground floor of this too, and because huge amounts of the metadata will be part of the structure of the rich web, they'll be able to index it and deliver the aggregate information (which is their product) an order of magnitude more effectively than before.

Re:Content is king

[Ruis (21357)]

This whole thing sounds like the CIC database in Snow Crash.

Coral link to pictures

[by Anonymous Coward]

base.google.com pictures [nyud.net]

Legal questions?

[by Anonymous Coward]

What steps will they have to take to discourage people from using this to transmit and store illegal material?

Of course, almost every other service on the net has that same basic problem. But if you are trying to establish a gigantic distributed free database, this has got to be one of your main concerns.

Re:Legal questions?

[temojen (678985)]

Don't ask, don't tell; be a common carrier.

Re:Legal questions?

[ZachPruckowski (918562)]

Well, if it is publicly searchable, then all Google has to do is let the FBI search for watch words. Which ought to be easy enough. Even if it isn't publicly searchable, then it'll be just like gmail, they have to let the Feds in when the law says they do.

But Google is itself immune from prosecution under the Betamax decision, and the Grokster case, since all it needs is a legitimate primary use, unless Google like publicly supports the use of the software for illegal purposes. Or something like that.

Baffling!

[The Shrewd Dude (880136)]

to post information and other types of data

What data is not considered information, and vice-versa?

Re:Baffling!

[temojen (678985)]

'cat /dev/urandom' to find out.

Re:Baffling!

[isny (681711)]

This post, and others like it, are data, but not information. Now, if the stars are in alignment, this post will be ironically moderated "informative".

Re:Baffling!

[Eil (82413)]

What data is not considered information, and vice-versa?

Data is a set of raw facts. (A stream of bits, for example.) After you apply some sort of algorithm to it, it becomes information. (A digitized image, for example.) After you mentally process the information and consider it within the context of the situation, it becomes knowledge. (Goatse.cx, for example.)

Of course, there are some kinds of knowledge most people would rather not have.

Cripes! Holy diversity, Batman!

[mister_llah (891540)]

Is there anything computered-based out there that Google won't be doing in the future?

===

I can't wait for the Google fashion lines...

Actually, I could see them trying to push for rollable LCD panel clothing... ... I digress... just know that in 10 years Google win own the whole mess.

Everything. :)

In broad outlines

[denissmith (31123)]

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.

Google this, google that!

[ChrisGilliard (913445)]

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.

Re:Google this, google that!

[TedCheshireAcad (311748)]

Maybe they can offer free Gasoline

Googleen will be available in an ad-supported context, where you receive free Googleen in exchange for targeted advertisements displayed on your windshield. Of course, Googleen has been engineered by the top Ph.D. minds in the world, so not only will you get 100 miles per gallon, but the Googleen will also clean your engine, and proactively repair problems with your car.

Google have taken their eyes off the ball

[Dynamoo (527749)]

It's all very interesting and clever.. but I think Google are taking their eyes off the ball here. When Google stop concentrating on trying to search the web and start concentrating on rebuilding it then you're looking at a company playing a high risk game. People with long memories might remember that Microsoft tried to recreate the internet [wikipedia.org] ten years ago with the launch of MSN.. and failed.

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 [google.com] 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.

Re:Google have taken their eyes off the ball

[BWJones (18351)]

The problem with this is that the structure of the Internet is difficult to navigate and difficult to index a system that is constantly changing. Enforcing some sort of "structure" will make things more easily searched, organized and reliable. There's lots of us PhDs that are interested in indexing information, but for particular questions, you need to be able to structure data in some form that allows accessibility.

Re:Google have taken their eyes off the ball

[kavau (554682)]

1. Become the technological leader in your field
2. Profit!
3. Get fat and lazy
4. Microsoft discovers that your field is profitable
5. ?????
6. Profit (Microsoft, that is)!

Maybe Google is trying to avoid this scenario by branching out.

Re:Google have taken their eyes off the ball

[Tibet Sprague (778599)]

I have seen numerous people claim that Google is starting losing focus or take their eyes off the prize (ball, etc) but I have yet to see any conclusive evidence. The truth is Google has an insane number of smart people working for them and each one is supposed to be using 20% of their time to work on a pet project of sorts. Every so often these projects get released as betas and add to the growing package of google "apps". While many of these apps are still imperfect and unpolished (as befits the beta title) they are all at the least interesting additions to their respective categories. People see this endless flow of new google releases and think they are spreading themselves thin when in fact each "app" is probably being developed by a small group of programmers who are interested and devoted to the project.

My points are these:

• The fact that google is releasing so many products does not mean they have stopped thinking about search. In fact PageRank was tweaked once again just a few days ago. They probably still have a hugs number of employees devoted entirely to search.
• While their competitors are starting to catch up, Google still has a big lead in the search arena and is far from losing it if only because of mindshare.
• By releasing so many products in so many areas Google assures themselves of not being left behind in any area of the web. They are testing the waters of RSS (Google Reader), Web Acceleration, VOIP, soon micro-payments and now structured data storage and classifieds and whatever else Google Base will become.

In conclusion Google has their foot in every door and whichever ones lead to higher revenue they will follow. I think it's a solid business plan.

Re:Google have taken their eyes off the ball

[jacksonj04 (800021)]

I think Google have done anything but take their eye off the ball. Remember how Froogle and Google Local were once beta projects, and are now integrated with google.com search? And then Google Maps was slipped into the equation. define: has been moved out of a little-known backwater of the site and integrated with google.com...

Google having a foot in all the doors simply means they are finding the best way to index and search that information. It won't surprise me if they all end up integrated somewhere with just plain Google Search, to the extent that they lose their own 'section'. Google Base is simply (from what I can tell) a huge database of everything, which (chances are) will end up integrated.

I want to be able to log in to Google and have all my own data at my fingertips, easily searchable, and for the engine behind it all to know what I'm after. At the moment, powerful though other web searches may be, Google is the only company to attempt to unify everything for the users. If Google can provide what I'm after, I would be willing to pay a significant amount of money to have them organise all my data, be it news, emails, contacts, files, web history, chats, driving directions, cinema times... the list goes on.

Re:Google have taken their eyes off the ball

[adpowers (153922)]

I agree. I've been to a number of Google tech talk/recruiting sessions and they really emphasize the small groups inside the company. Most projects seem to be 2-4 people. Only when a product nears launch do more people get involved (lawyers, UI designers, translators, etc.). I thought they said that Gmail was done by about four people for most of the time. When you have this many groups, of course there will be lots of diversity. Sometimes when I see a new product or one-box coming out of the Googleplex, I

Re:Google have taken their eyes off the ball

[MacJedi (173)]

and what exactly is the problem with google answers?

Deep Search

[evw (172810)]

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.

Google supplants hard drive

[Wylfing (144940)]

I have maintained for a few years now that ultimately we will all share one big hard drive and its name will be Google.

why?

[Councilor Hart (673770)]

Why would I want to put my information under your control?

Re:why?

[rackhamh (217889)]

"Under your control" -- in what sense?

You are the one choosing what information to publish, and presumably, you are the only person who can remove or alter the published information. Google is simply acting as a data warehousing service in this case.

So you are relinquishing no more control than an author does by making his books available in bookstores that he doesn't own.

Unless I've missed your point?

Re:why?

[umeshunni (37684)]

This is Microsoft's scrapped Hailstorm [enterprise...eforum.com] initiative all over again. Except that it's Google doing it. It's interesting to note that two of Haistorm's key architects (Mark Lucovsky & Adam Bosworth [wikipedia.org]) now work at Google.
I suppose they think the same idea would work if a different company did this.

Re:why?

[daviddennis (10926)]

Google will never charge for raw search results (as opposed to adwords). Google has plenty of competition that does exactly that, and uses underhanded methods (i.e. spyware) to direct people to their sites. Despite these tricks, those sites are nowhere near as popular as Google and don't make the kind of money Google does. Google is not going to mess that up.

Your observations would appear to mean that Google Adwords are effective advertising.

My business partner and I have a business here, and even though

Excellant news for contract service providers.

[stimpleton (732392)]

I'm just drawing up a reply to a RFI from a health provider. They are upgrading their medical records database.
My solution included oracle on linux servers.

I'll just use this instead..but just say I'm providing the infrastructure.

Yassah.

Re:Excellant news for contract service providers.

[iggymanz (596061)]

wee little hipaa violation there, but other than that it's a great idea

What, really, is it?

[Tidal Flame (658452)]

Am I missing the point, or does this just seem like another version of the internet, except loosely categorized and all stored on Google's servers? What are they planning to achieve with this? I realize that they're integrating a lot of existing Google functionality into it, and I guess that could be useful, but it still seems like it's just Google Internet or something.

All Your Base Are Belong to Us

[slashflood (697891)]

Oh, I just submitted the following story:

It seems that Google is going to announce a new service called Google Base [google.com] today at the invite only Google Zeitgeist [google.com] conference. At the moment, we only have a [seweso.com] few [flickr.com] screenshots [telendro.com.es] and a pretty interesting discussion at threadwatch.org. Conflicting rumors have pointed to a new Google database, classifieds like Craigslist, [threadwatch.org]an Ebay contender [redherring.com] or just another way to submit URLs.

Re:Proposed New Slashdot Story Selection Algorithm

[geminidomino (614729)]

PS: what's the deal with the 'lameness' filter? I couldn't get my properly formatted pseudocode past it.

It had to make sure your post was sufficiently lame as to properly represent the Slashdot Standards of Quality(tm)

Data is only as good as its source...

[Colz Grigor (126123)]

Again, just because information is out there doesn't mean that it's accurate or complete. Providing a tool to capture more data will have the tendency of diluting the level of accuracy of available information.

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.

::Colz Grigor

Re:Data is only as good as its source...

[slashflood (697891)]

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.

Check this [slashdot.org] out.

don't fall for the trick!

[circletimessquare (444983)]

you give them your information to, ehem "database"

and then they destroy it! [theonion.com]

EPIC is coming!

[dshaw858 (828072)]

'Nuff said [lightover.com].

Creepy. Well, I for one welcome our new Google overlords! :)

- dshaw

Total. Fucking. Chaos.

[DysenteryInTheRanks (902824)]

Congratulations, Google, you have solved the easiest part of classified ads, online auctions, and publishing: stuffing the information into distinct fields in a database.

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.

Semantic Web, anybody?

[Otto (17870)]

Look at some of these screenshots: http://www.seweso.com.nyud.net:8090/blog/ [nyud.net]

Specifically, the second one down, where it says "Attributes are name-value pairs that describe your item" and gives examples like "Author: Ernest Hemmingway and Area: 400 Square km".

Does this remind anybody of the Resource Description Framework? Maybe they're trying to start creating the Semantic Web, perhaps? Long talked about, but not, thus far, actually done? Maybe using something clever like OWL [w3.org] to search it and otherwise organize this metadata of all sorts of submitted things?

Just a theory, of course.

Why Payment Service will ruin Google

[G4from128k (686170)]

I fear that Google's payment service will ruin the company's reputation. The potential for fraud, money laundering, phishing, mis-representation of goods, charge-back disputes, illegitimate charities, etc. will force Google to implement the same draconian policies that Paypal has. The high cost of customer service will force Google to use the same anonymous/automated resolution processes that do more to piss-off customers that resolve disputes. Erroneously banned account holders, defrauded account holders will be mad that Google isn't spending hours on the phone with them and resolving situations to their liking.

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.

Google Payments?

[bluephone (200451)]

Am I the only one to miss the official announcement of this? I've heard rumors about it for years, but when did it become a given?

A new front in the spam war

[snowwrestler (896305)]

How will Google keep people from uploading spam and flooding the system? Give people that much power over what lives in your system and see what happens. The status of Blogger is instructive.

Re:All your base

[grasshoppa (657393)]

(sorry, someone had to do it)

No, no I don't think anybody had to do it. :)

Re:I for one

[RoffleTheWaffle (916980)]

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.

Yahoo

[meehawl (73285)]

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.

Re:Only one question...

[kebes (861706)]

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.