larryhead
10-26-2005, 06:37 PM
It's down now, but here's a screenshot someone put up on flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dirson/55908013/
Bye bye Craiglist and ebay....
An online classified service being tested by Google set off intense speculation today after a Web site for the service was accidentally made public and discovered by a computer programmer on Monday.
The service, named Google Base, which was accessible at base.google.com, described itself as: "Google's database into which you can add all types of content. We'll host your content and make it searchable online for free."
As designed, the new service could automatically funnel listings on all kinds of subjects and display them as part of the company's sponsored ad links on the right hand side of pages displaying search results from Google queries.
Word of the new service, which would potentially compete with newspapers as well as with online classified services like those on eBay and Craig's List, drove eBay's stock down about 5 percent at various points during the day.
The Google Base page was discovered on Monday by a British programmer, Tony Ruscoe, who said he had created an automatic program to search for subdomains accessible at the Google.com Web site. Google, based in Mountain View, Calif., took down the test site and replaced the page with a "403" forbidden access response.
Google issued a statement suggesting that the purpose of the test site was to make it simpler for Google customers to post content on Google.
"We are testing new ways for content owners to easily send their content to Google," the company said. Like our Web crawl and the recently released Google Sitemaps program, we are working to provide content owners an easy way to give us access to their content. We're continually exploring new opportunities to expand our offerings, but we don't have anything to announce at this time."
Google executives, who are the hosts of a conference for partners and advertisers, called Google Zeitgeist, would not comment.
EBay, the online auction company, based in San Jose, Calif., is currently a major Google advertiser. The potential of direct competition between the two Silicon Valley giants has been a subject of speculation for several years.
Entire industries, from publishing to telecommunications, have reacted nervously as Google has tested new advertising-subsidized services that compete directly in areas as diverse as voice communications and desktop PC applications.
Google has been tight-lipped about its strategies, saying little beyond that it tends to organize and make accessible all of the world's information. However, behind the scenes, the company has been stockpiling a powerful computing and communications system that has applications stretching beyond the Web search business.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dirson/55908013/
Bye bye Craiglist and ebay....
An online classified service being tested by Google set off intense speculation today after a Web site for the service was accidentally made public and discovered by a computer programmer on Monday.
The service, named Google Base, which was accessible at base.google.com, described itself as: "Google's database into which you can add all types of content. We'll host your content and make it searchable online for free."
As designed, the new service could automatically funnel listings on all kinds of subjects and display them as part of the company's sponsored ad links on the right hand side of pages displaying search results from Google queries.
Word of the new service, which would potentially compete with newspapers as well as with online classified services like those on eBay and Craig's List, drove eBay's stock down about 5 percent at various points during the day.
The Google Base page was discovered on Monday by a British programmer, Tony Ruscoe, who said he had created an automatic program to search for subdomains accessible at the Google.com Web site. Google, based in Mountain View, Calif., took down the test site and replaced the page with a "403" forbidden access response.
Google issued a statement suggesting that the purpose of the test site was to make it simpler for Google customers to post content on Google.
"We are testing new ways for content owners to easily send their content to Google," the company said. Like our Web crawl and the recently released Google Sitemaps program, we are working to provide content owners an easy way to give us access to their content. We're continually exploring new opportunities to expand our offerings, but we don't have anything to announce at this time."
Google executives, who are the hosts of a conference for partners and advertisers, called Google Zeitgeist, would not comment.
EBay, the online auction company, based in San Jose, Calif., is currently a major Google advertiser. The potential of direct competition between the two Silicon Valley giants has been a subject of speculation for several years.
Entire industries, from publishing to telecommunications, have reacted nervously as Google has tested new advertising-subsidized services that compete directly in areas as diverse as voice communications and desktop PC applications.
Google has been tight-lipped about its strategies, saying little beyond that it tends to organize and make accessible all of the world's information. However, behind the scenes, the company has been stockpiling a powerful computing and communications system that has applications stretching beyond the Web search business.