The homepage for Google Base has been tweaked a bit, with a much simpler look-and-feel and a few links in red.
The first version of Google Base served as a basic tutorial to using the service. Users can post items and information to Base and Google hosts and indexes it. The various features Google made available in Base, along with reports of services like Automat and Payments in development, led many to believe Google will soon compete with eBay and Craigslist for classifieds.
Now the main Google Base page has dispensed with the handholding. To describe the new look, words like “utilitarian” and “Spartan” come to mind.
Google Base displays a list of recent searches, links to post an item or bulk upload a number of items, and twenty links under the “browse posted items” label. A few of the links are in bold, like Blogs and Podcasts, while others show up in red, like Jobs and People Profiles.
It’s a broad selection of topics to focus upon the main page as search starting points. How many people really click on the Patents link? (Ok, besides me.) The Jobs link returns results in a local search that almost exclusively come from CareerBuilder.com.
As a beta service, Base will be subject to a variety of adjustments and changes, like the implementation of jump pages for automobile and other listings. Once a mechanism for processing payments gets rolled out, we expect to see even more changes take place.
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David Utter is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business.
