First Base
Posted by Bindu Reddy, Product
Manager
Today we're excited to announce
href="http://base.google.com/" >Google Base, an extension of our
existing content collection efforts like web crawl, Google
Sitemaps, Google Print and Google Video. 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. There's
href="http://base.google.com/base/about.html" >more info
here.
Some organizations are already using Google Base. Here are a few
examples.
"Students need as much information as possible when they
are searching for the right college or university. Google Base
helps us reach students and parents and deliver more of the
information they need when making important college
decisions." - Hal Higginbotham, President,
CollegeBoard.com
"We want to use knowledge and information about the
environment to help motivate more responsible public and private
action. With Google Base, we can bring the public key insights on
sustainability issues – like climate change, human health, and
resource consumption – and bring about change." – Amy Cassara,
Senior Associate, World Resources Institute
"CareerBuilder.com's business model is built on
providing employers with as many avenues as possible to connect
with job seekers. Feeding our jobs to Google Base further extends
our distribution network, providing employers with added support in
marketing their open positions." - Richard Castellini, VP of
Consumer Marketing, CareerBuilder.com
"We compile an enormous amount of valuable data on fine
art and artists, and we want collectors, dealers, students and art
aficionados to have easy access to this information. Google Base
enables us to reach more people researching art and get them the
information they need." - Brent Peich, Director of Marketing,
Artnet
"Our mission is to make it easy for small businesses to
use the web to drive in-store sales. Google Base gives us an ideal
outlet to promote and distribute content about local products more
broadly." - Kendall Fargo, Founder & CEO, StepUp
Commerce
Right now, there are two ways to submit data items to Google Base.
Individuals and small website owners can use an interactive user
interface; larger organizations and sites can use the bulk uploads
option to send us content using standard XML formats.
Rather than impose specific schemas and structures on the world,
Google Base suggests attributes and item types based on popularity,
which you can use to define and attach your own labels and
attributes to each data item. Then searchers can find information
more quickly and effectively by using these labels and attributes
to refine their queries on the experimental version of Google Base
search.
This beta version of Google Base is another small step toward our
goal, creating an online database of easily searchable, structured
information. As always, we welcome
href="http://base.google.com/support/bin/request.py" >your
feedback and ideas.
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