Google Base Review

Posted by Miles Evans

I nearly fell of my chair the other day when an instant message revealed the odd URL: http://base.google.com. Hot damn has Google finally implemented the Matrix? What could this fresh bun out of the Google Labs be after what seems an endless stream of impressive web tools. Well it's official folks. There is now an alternative to ebay with the somewhat Orwellian name Google Base. Baaaaaase. As in all your base belong to us - or die ebay, you are asleep at the wheel and we are going to eat your soul this year.

The Google Base Blogspot goes on to reveal a few more juicy tidbits on big G's broader work in payments including what on earth we are to expect from Google Store.

So what is Google Base? Essentially it’s a bidding system but there seems a bit more to it than just an ebay clone. I took Google Base for a spin today and listed a couple of items. Adding them was insanely simple. The first thing you come to appreciate is the yummy AJAX forms these guys keep throwing at us. This stuff has really come of age and big G was definitely a large reason for that. I use to regularly blather on to clients that javascript was dead technology and error prone – boy has my tune changed.

Ok so listing items is quick and simple. Adding multiple photo’s, descriptions, even your own descriptive fields was a snap. Now this is cool - contacting posters is done via an auto generated email address ala Craigslist. Oh and yeah, Craig is likely not having such a good week as the similarities to Craigslist go a bit further than that. If you search Base for artists, SEO, programming or pretty much anything labour related, what you see are permanent entries for websites offering these services. It is a bit confusing how this model is going to play out but it looks like a lot of well established old guard sites will be paying attention closely – not just Mrs. Whitman and Craig either.

Here are a couple of screenshots from the Base item editting area.

Google Base seems destined to become another source of targeted, credit card in hand, deal finders. Aren’t we all after high conversion traffic? We also all know that ebay is often 100% of a retailers marketing traffic. It makes sense that anyone using ebay will be listing in Base. When a product is added to Base it is automatically inserted into Froogle as well, which shows how much Google has thought this out.

You can’t not be impressed with Google’s latest monster - even in this crippled beta form. There are still many questions as to how the payment system will work (yes that means you paypal), but with Base being tested openly one has to wonder if Google’s payment system isn’t just around the corner as well. The online world has wanted a Paypal alternative for too long and anyone with a clue knows that is where this is all heading.

It is easy to see that there are plenty of holes to be filled on Google Base, but once the kinks are ironed out this is going to be an interesting addition to the empire. Get stoked!

Update: I just came across this exclusive look at Google Payments with screenshots from techcrunch. From their review:

The checkout process is extremely quick and much faster than Paypal’s (page loading times are Google fast) – it also has a much nicer interface making it easier for a user to navigate their way through a checkout and purchase. Overall with Google Base and payments the experience for a user is much nicer than what it is on eBay, a very nice interface and many search features while maintaining the very minimal yet functional interface as expected from Google.

Posted Feb 28, 2006 at 02:39 AM | Permalink | Trackback URL | Del.icio.us | DIGG!