I suspect that Google will soon announce a program whereby people can register their “Base compliant” RSS feeds with Google base. Google will then poll these feeds regularly just like any other RSS reader. Publishers can either create brand new Base-compliant feeds or with a bit of XSLT/XML Schema of their own they can just transpose their own content into a Base compliant feed. Indeed I wouldn’t be surprised if there are several software programs available for download in a couple months that do just that. Soon, every publisher on the planet will be able to have a highly automated, highly structured feed directly into Google base.
Once the feed gets inside Google the fun is just beginning. Most commentators have been underwhelmed by Google Base because they don’t see the big deal of Google Base entires showing up as part of free text search. What these commentators miss, is that Google isn’t gathering all this structured data just so they can regurgitate it piece-meal via unstructured queries, they are gathering all this data so that they can build the world’s largest XML database.
And Mark Pincus:
google started with an amazing premise of doing no evil. i truly believe its founders want to help the world. my guess is that like many companies google will be a victim of its own success. like msft it will go hire the smartest people in the world. unfortunately, those people are often sharks and have less lofty goals, especially when they have yet to make their billions.
google base is a very msft mba approach to the world. while it makes business sense, it lacks soul. it does as little to help the community as bringing in a walmart. in fact, google feels a like walmart today.
Well said, John. We share your view. we are amazed how litte people are talking about the real implications of Google Base. Services like that will transform the Internet completely.