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Update: 24 October 2005 (22:40)

A post by shimsand over at SearchEngineWatch gives some information about what we can expect...

Google Base is Google’s latest project in an effort to organize the world’s information. It isn’t in Beta or Alpha yet. They are still developing it. I wasn’t able to get much information from my sources at Google, but I’ll tell you what they told me. Basically, Google Base will present feed results on the results page. The feeds will probably be anywhere from 1-3 results, and either presented above or below the horizontal sponsored ads.

Update: 25 October 2005 (09:15)

And Google Base is now live... kind of. It doesn’t seem possible to login just yet, but the page is now showing this:

“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.

Examples of items you can find in Google Base:

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

You can describe any item you post with attributes, which will help people find it when they search Google Base. In fact, based on the relevance of your items, they may also be included in the main Google search index and other Google products like Froogle and Google Local.”

The FAQs should be online soon too, but the page is currently just displaying, “Oops... We didn’t understand that. Your [sic] have tried to access a non-existent page.”

So, all you sceptics who thought I was way off thinking it could be an Online Database Application can eat your words! (BTW, credit must go to Wouter Schut in the Google Blogoscoped Forum for the idea to scan their subdomains again – and for the suggestion of it being something database related!)

Update: 26 October 2005 (13:10)

The Official Google Blog is being a bit vague but more details and screenshots are now available all over the Internet.

If you’re after some more information, I’d recommend reading the following posts on Philipp Lenssen’s Google Blogoscoped:

• Google Base Was Sort of Live
• More Google Base Screenshots

(BTW, I think that getting mentioned by The Guardian and The New York Times is pretty cool...)

Update: 26 October 2005 (21:30)

Well, Google Base appears to be almost live... yet again! I’m still not able to sign in to the service, but I’ve noticed that it now appears on my Google Accounts menu. Screenshots as follows:

• Google Accounts: Account Summary
  https://www.google.com/accounts/
• Google Accounts: Edit Google Base
  https://www.google.com/accounts/EditUserServiceData?service=gbase

Update: 27 October 2005 (13:50)

So, Google Base is up and down like a yo-yo. Oh well. On a kind of related note, I noticed that when I signed out of Google Accounts, the sign out screen showed “Purchases” in the list of services that I was logged out of:

• Google Accounts: Sign Out
  http://www.google.com/accounts/Logout

Note: this only seems to appear when you sign out immediately after trying to login to Google Purchases.

Update: 16 November 2005 (09:00)

Finally! According to the Official Google Blog, Google Base is now officially live! (It’s only in beta, of course, but it’s live...)