The value of Google increases as more information is placed on the internet. The larger the internet space the more important it is to have a great search engine. But lately more and more data is trapped in databases.
This is where Google Base comes in. The little heard about project at Google is going to be a big deal. Google Base appears to be a global database project. It has the potential to organize and link vast amounts of data in a way that has never been done before.
A little background on databases... A database can be thought of as a simple table of data, it can have multiple rows and columns and in each cell of the table is some data. This is similar to excel and similar spreadsheet programs. The thing that makes databases more powerfully is that you can create relationships between different tables. For example one person may have a table of music and another person may have a table of top selling hits. A database can link those two tables together to tell you what music was also a top selling hit. In theory you can relate many types of data to each other to allow people to discover new things about the data that already exists.
So what is Google Base? It looks like it may be a general purpose database that could house any type of information at all. This is interesting from a technology standpoint but what's also likely is that Google will provide an API to this technology. An API is a way for programs to talk to each other. In particular it could be a way for programs to access a world of knowledge. It would also likely allow programs to add to the database. So instead of storing your data in your own little database you could export it to Google Base and create connections to other data.
If this is really what's about to happen it's going to be a very exciting. The internet has been all about pages but this could easily change. Instead of pages you could create a web of data.
Instead of surfing from one web page to another you could surf from one data set to another. Look up yourself in the people table, then link over to see the average salary of people your age. From there see what jobs make up your generation. Every data set will contains links. These links bring you to other data sets that can also be linked, filtered and analyzed.
Initially the tool will likely be more technical but over time it will allow Google users to analyze data like a seasoned professional. It may even border on Artificial intelligence in its ability to properly link data together to produce data results.
Get ready to surf the data-net.