Google Base still is far more then an eBay competitor, but it is getting closer.

The search engine has quietly added a payment option to the Google Base beta.

Google Base at the moment isn't much, but could become a lot. You have to think big to see the potential of Google Base, and you have to be willing to speculate even more.

Now that we have those disclaimers out of the way: think of Google base as an open database holding all kinds of information, from store items to recipes. Add a truckload of meta information and you've got a poster child for the web 2.0 hype.

If Google succeeds to collect enough information, the search engine becomes the proprietor of the world's largest online database, and a platform for all kinds of mesh-up applications similar to the likes of Housingmaps.com.

While it's still all about the data, adding a payment service will allow Google to generate revenues off its Google Base service.

In the process the company gets to create a viable alternative to Ebay and Paypal, both of which in the past years have become complacent and started to display monopolistic behaviour with fee hikes that were to benefit corporate profits instead of reflecting the laws of supply and demand. Either way, the consumer wins.

Tags: ebay, google, google base

27 Feb 2006