SEL: Google Base: Google's First Shot at Real Estate Listings?

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October 25, 2005

Google Base: Google's First Shot at Real Estate Listings?

This could be big. For the record everything I write here is speculation I've gathered and I've not heard back from Google on any of it.

Here goes: Philipp Lenssen yesterday posted on the discovery of a new Google sub domain, base.Google.com.

Today Philipp posted a screen shot of the site, caught by Dirson and posted to Flikr. And here from Dutch blogger Wouter Schut.

What is Google Base?

"Google Base is Google’s database into which you can add all types of content. We’ll host your content and make it searchable online for free."

It sounds like a user-tagged searchable "item" database. Google's description of what to submit included:

• Description of your party planning service
• Articles on current events from your website
• Listing of your used car for sale
• Database of protein structures

Google Real Estate Listings

This deeper level screen shot shows a Google Base real estate listing form.

It appears that the listings will be free to upload, so how, based on Base, will Google monetize real estate listings?

Will Base wet noodle like Talk and Google Reader?

And how on earth do they expect to control the spam?

Dirson reports:

This new tool will be introduced during the 'Google Zeitgeist'05 Partner Forum' to be held today at Google HQ in California.

We expect that 'Google Purchases' --the new micropayments service among users-- will be also introduced as a complement to 'Google Base'.

Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

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