To help feed its insatiable information hunger, Google Inc. has begun publicly testing Google Base, a service designed to host and make searchable “all types of online and offline content,” the Mountain View, California, company announced.Described as an extension of existing Google content collection efforts, such as Web crawl, Google Base can be used by large companies and individuals alike to post data in the form of categorized items that Google will host and make searchable for free, wrote Bindu Reddy, a company product manager, in Google’s official Web blog shortly after midnight Wednesday EST.“This beta version of Google Base is another small step toward our goal, creating an online database of easily searchable, structured information,” Reddy wrote.People who post items to Google Base are asked to classify them with keywords or phrases, which Google calls labels, and to describe them with terms, which Google calls attributes. In this way, Google appears to have made its most concrete move to date into the realm of user-generated content and tagging, popularized by services such as the Del.icio.us social-bookmarking site and Yahoo Inc.’s Flickr photo-sharing site.The range of items that can be posted on Google Base is broad, encompassing such disparate things as poems, events, recipes, research papers, products and job postings, according to information on the Google Base Web site (http://base.google.com). In addition to appearing on Google Base, items posted there could also surface in Google’s main Web index, the Froogle comparison shopping site and the Google Local listing of businesses. By Juan Carlos Perez, IDG News Service Related content brandpost How an Indian real-estate juggernaut keeps growing by harnessing the power of zero A South Indian real-estate titan is known for the infinite variety and impressive scale of its projects, but one of its most towering achievements amounts to nothing literally. By Michael Kure, SAP Contributor May 31, 2023 5 mins Digital Transformation brandpost Hybrid working: the new workplace normal IT leaders discuss how a more broadly dispersed workforce impacts device deployment, connectivity, and the employee experience, even as more workers return to the office. By Michael Krieger May 31, 2023 5 mins Remote Work opinion Can you spot the hidden theme of CSO’s Future of Cybersecurity summit? By Beth Kormanik May 31, 2023 2 mins Events Cybercrime Artificial Intelligence case study How IT leaders use EV tech to fuel the transport revolution in Kenya Many African nations are starting to invest in electric vehicle (EV) transportation as a means to broaden access and help keep pace with global environmental initiatives. In Kenya, strides are being made despite industry and tech leaders grappling to By Vincent Matinde May 31, 2023 5 mins CIO CTO Emerging Technology Podcasts Videos Resources Events SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe