Google Page Creator
Google came out with a web page creator a few weeks ago but after the first few thousand people signed up a waiting list started. I, of course, signed up as soon as I could not because I really need another website but just because I wanted to play with something new. This morning my Google Pages account got activated!
Logging in to Google Pages was painless like any other Google service. All I had to do was accept some legal stuff saying that I wouldn’t do the usual illegal things. Once logged in the service works just like any other Google web application. Everything was easy to use and did pretty much what I expected it to do. It’s fairly simple too. You can create a new page, preview it, publish it, save it and link it to other pages. There is also a facility to upload files and link those as well. At the bottom it says that there is a 100mb limit on pages/uploads. I guess they’re not using the Amazon S3 web service for storage. 
When you create a Google website it publishes to http://username.googlepages.com. You can visit my sweet retro page at http://eric.willis.googlepages.com. There are about 40 templates that you can choose from to make your site as cool looking as mine.
Pages is too simple for any advanced users but would work great for my mom. I didn’t see any type of CSS editor (the code generator uses font tags) or more advanced interfaces for coding. Although, you can edit the HTML directly. At any rate it is very well done and is a nice addition to the heaps of Google web applications already available. I would give it 4/5 stars. Minus one for is simplicity and use of font tags — but considering its intended audience definitely four stars.
Posted: March 21st, 2006 under technology, websites.
Comments: 2
Comments
Comment from Liz
Time: March 21, 2006, 10:14 am
Note the problem with the URL from a privacy standpoint, however. It immediately exposes your GMail user name. Not ideal if you want (a) a private email address or (b) an anonymous Google page.
The workaround is to invite yourself into GMail with a new pseudonymous account, and use that for your Google pages. But most users won’t know to do that.
Comment from Eric
Time: March 21, 2006, 1:23 pm
I thought of that as I was posting this entry because while typing my URL, I accidentally typed my email address.
On a kind of related note, I use a gmail address for all of my domain registrations to keep my real one out. That way I have web access to my registrar email and I don’t care very much if it gets spammed.
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