Google Base stretching it’s wings….
There have been a couple of interesting articles lately about the evolution of Google Base. When it came out, I remember thinking I would have to spend some time thinking about how to use it. It has interesting potential to be a VERY powerful tool for Google in their competition for web traffic. One article in particular, tells how in a sense Google Real Estate has started appearing…. “When searching “houses for sale” in a regular Google search, some users might see a one-box that helps narrow down what type of house they are looking for.” Now, Google Real Estate might not be an official product launch, but an example of integration of Google Base information into regular search results.
Search Engine Watch has a story on some of the recent appearances of Google Recipes, Real Estate and Careers, if you will…. All of these are pulling data from Google Base. But you might begin to see how they can leverage Base to compete with MOST any online directory from simple classifieds, to ebay style auctions. It gives people more reasons to search there (helpful, relevant “guiding” of your search…) and essentially get’s more eyeballs/ more places to put sponsored ads, etc.
Add to it that the Google Base home page has expanded it’s list of categories. I know when it came out, retailers with online stores were using it to upload information on their product information, but this has the potential (especially with local filtering and mapping) to be THE killer app. They do of course, offer bulk uploads so you can enter more than one item at a time. I need to sit down and see how easy it is to do a bulk upload (how easy it might be to prepare a bulk upload file….) Also, most items expire after 30 days.
This is one of the things I need to spend some time on….