Real Estate, Cars, Jobs: Watch Out World, Google Base Has Only Begun To Stir

With the launch of these Google Base front-ends, Google is clearly putting into place the major pieces required to support its vertical search platform.  Broadly speaking, such a platform requires 4 major pieces:

1. A big, highly scalable database that can handle lots of queries.  This, of course, is what Google Base was all about.
2. Consumer friendly front ends to access these databases.  The auto and real estate front ends are obviously the first of such front ends.
3. A large, robust, crawling farm.  This is obviously Google’s crown jewel.
4. A set of intelligent algorithms to find, classify, and flag listings.  We have yet to see this from Google.

Most people remain unimpressed by Google Base because it doesn’t seem to contain a lot data.  That’s because what you are seeing is a work in progress that is being purposely hobbled to reduce load during the testing phase.   Google has now built beta versions of pieces #1 and #2.  We will un doubtedly soon see pieces #3 and #4.  Only when those pieces are in place will Google Base fulfill its potential.