Slashdot Mirror
Google Pages Launches
An anonymous reader writes "Google released the first public beta of its Google Pages service Wednesday, allowing users who signed up for the service in January and February to begin creating personal websites using an easy-to-use, browser-based tool. The service gives each user 100 MB of free storage space on Google's servers. To use the Google Page Creator tool, users must have an existing Google account. However, only those who signed up early (in January and February) to use Google Pages have access to the current beta. No new signups are being accepted at this time, Google said. The company is expected to open Page Creator to more widespread use over the next few weeks."
Funny, I could've sworn GeoCities and Angelfire had something like this many many years ago. Complete with page building tools and wizards...
The only true advantage I see to this is that Google gives you a LOT more disk space for free, wheras you have to pay for more with G&A... but perhaps that's why we're seeing "Sorry, we are unable to offer new accounts today. We appreciate your interest and invite you to add your Gmail address to our wait list. We'll let you know when we've enabled your account."
I'm not trying to advertise for G&A, I just don't see how this is something to jump up and down about. Search engine, Email, webpages, online stores/auctions... they're just becoming the next Yahoo.
--
"Man Bites Dog
Then Bites Self"
Capitalism: When it uses the carrot, it's called democracy. When it uses the stick, it's called fascism.
It'll be interesting to watch how cautiously they approach this launch. After the Google Analytics launch debarcle I'll watch intensely at how much they've learned.
Sorry, your web browser is not yet supported. Our programming wizards tried their darndest to get Google Page Creator to work with as many browsers as possible. But alas, even the most expert practitioners of web sorcery must sleep now and again, lest their JavaScript magic run dry. So, for now, you'll need either to download a new version of Firefox or download a new version of Internet Explorer (Windows only), and then come right back.
- The use of AJAX is well done. Pages save by themselves, you can drag and align images, and there's a nifty file upload utility.
- There's simple versioning, allowing work on pages before publishing.
- The HTML editor is super-easy. They do let you play with the raw HTML, which might cause problems down the road.
In general, I think it'll be a nice tool for people wanting a small little web site with a handful of pages. It doesn't do other things very well, such as maintaining navigation between pages or doing any sort of interactive pages. Still, Google tries hard to capture the 80% useage and I think they've done so with this little application.USERNAME@gmail.com can be obtained from USERNAME.googlepages.com and a list of the later can be pulled by using Google to search for site: googlepages.com
Hulk SMASH Celiac Disease
I'm a little confused. I signed up to GooglePages in February when Slashdot first reported this story, and I've been happily been able to log in and edit my site ever since... I take it from this article that this hasn't been the case for everyone?
That someone at Google is browsing Yahoo! just a little too much?
GooglePages offers a very basic set of editing tools and a bunch of pre-defined page templates. It's pretty similar in usability to the GeoCities tools I used a while back, but the big difference is that it's all in-browser editing. With GeoCities I had to download an editor app and fire it up if I wanted to work on my pages, whereas with GooglePages you can immediately start entering content which makes it much more user friendly. I almost gave up of GeoCities several times due to the initial configuration process.
I wish Google had better integration, or even just basic links between it's services. Logged into Gmail and want to edit your GooglePages? Tough, you might as well open a seperate browser tab and navigate there from scratch. Likewise if you have a personalised Google home page - you can load a widget into it linking to your gmail, but again if you're in Gmail there's no easy way to go to your Google homepage reliably.
I know these are 'beta' services and they're beign incrementaly improved - the chat client in Gmail is nice - but Gmail has been in beta for a year or so now and how difficult would it be to just put simple links in place?
Simon
Dupe-dedupe da dupe dee dupe DUPE
Link to the Dupity-dupe
Sorry, this is my first time reporting a Dupe. And damn it, i'm going to have fun
--sig fault--
It loads initially okay in IE7, but it is a bit slow right now. I am not sure why, but it crashed the first time I used it. It didn't want to save, and it didn't load some of the tools on the left-hand menu. The next time I tried, it worked okay, but it hung again when I was uploading some images.
It has several default templates to choose from, which is nice. There is a menu on the left side to easily adjust your fonts, colours and layout.
I reloaded it in Firefox 1.5.0.1, and got this error: 'Google Page Creator is having a little trouble right now. This is not because of anything you did; it's just a little hiccup in our system that will hopefully go away soon. We apologize for the inconvenience, and recommend you try reloading this page.'
I then closed Firefox and reopened it, and it loaded perfectly.
I will give it a few days to work out the bugs, but for a free page creator with 100mb space, you can't beat it.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Does anybody actually still just edit static web pages? And does anybody still edit navigational structures by hand instead of using a CMS for maintaining the navigational elements?
It seems to me that a home page site should, at a minimum, support static pages, blogs, a gallery, calendar, comments, and a file archive under a common navigational structure.
So, this seems like a neat tour-de-force in AJAX, but I think it's missing where the world has been moving over the last few years.
I run two of my own servers but I signed up because I was looking for a simple web hosting service to recommend to a few non-technical friends. The editing features are simple enough to use. I ended up putting a boring little rant on Spirituality and Responsibility on my free googlepages account - nothing that I would put on my professional web sites, and material that is probably too boring even for my blog :-)
> Guy asked me for a quarter for a cup of coffee. So I bit him.
I know it's not funny when you explain a joke, but is there a punchline hidden in that sig?
What I'm not able to figure out is what kind of advertising is going to be there on user pages. Yahoo Geocities has a huge advertising pane on the right side of every page. I wonder how google will deal with inserting ads. If anyone here has got Google Pages access, what kind of advertising is present on the pages?
Another thing that's not clear: how much bandwidth they offer. Geocities has a daily bandwidth limit per user. If the limit is exceeded, the user's page isn't accesible for the rest of the day. It would be interesting to see how Google deals with this.
Unfortunately it's not a dupe when it's reporting new news. Just as Microsoft releasing the beta for Windows Vista isn't a dupe of Microsoft announcing that there will be a Windows Vista, this is not a dupe of that article. Didn't the "google released this Wednesday" clue you in that the article might actually be reporting something different than the article from more than a month ago, even if they are on the same software?
actually, i signed up for the service on monday, and got my invite tuesday saying my account had been set up...
I tried it yesterday, and didn't like it.
Oh, it's a groovy implementation of AJAX, but I found it was very awkward to use. It was restrictive enough to be frustrating, yet flexible enough to be confusing. I think Google was shooting for that perfect balance between usability and features, and missed.
Life is like a web application. Sometime you need cookies just to get by.
yes, but no matter how much TFA says it was released on Wednesday, it's been around since the last article. I built a site, other people built sites. This is nothing new, just TFA being slow.
wasn't page creator released more than a month ago??
You are supporting my point: the "home page" has been replaced by other services, which incidentally also generate an externally visible page. The people who still attempt to create a classical home page generate something that's ugly and obsolete.
Several posts above moan about how portals like yahoo filled their pages with ever more stuff making them impossible to use.
Perhaps google has decided to keep all their services seperate making it possible to keep their pages clean and not wasting screen space on links that should be in your bookmarks anyway.
You seem to want to turn google in another Yahoo. No thank you.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
However, only those who signed up early (in January and February) to use Google Pages have access to the current beta.
I signed up to it less than a week ago and 15 minutes ago I got an e-mail saying I could already use it. And it's true, I can.
So say we all
Am I the only one who sick of this Cartman-Google "you can't come" marketing strategy?
May Peace Prevail On Earth
Will they allow to use those 100Mb to store files to be linked and served from free hosted pages in other servers?
--
Superb hosting 20GB Storage, 1_TB_ bandwidth, ssh, $7.95
Email, search, news aggregation, blogging, webpage design, maps. Google is an information behemoth that is in search of a search engine these days. Don't get me wrong, I still think that they are winning on quality with their search, email and news services, but they are expanding rapidly into every conceivable territory, often without regard for being significantly better.
Ironically, just like Microsoft, they have a core strength surrounded by large amounts of weakness. Microsoft's great strengths are only its OS products, Microsoft Office and its development tools for the same. The other stuff in some respects actually drags the company down by causing it to lose sight of keeping the core compelling.
I actually happen to have no problem with Microsoft's core products, but there is a real, meaningful parallel between the two companies now. Google has "done evil" and will continue to do so. At this point in the game, their markets are too different to say whether Google really does have a different corporate culture in principle rather than degrees. Microsoft had to be vicious in order to become as big in its markets, but Google has to walk a finer line because information service monopolies are intrinsically scary to a much larger number of people than an OS and Office suite monopoly, though Google doesn't yet have a monopoly.
It strips flash code for me. Tried various embed methods such as the default and satay. I had to upload my own html with the code, and link to it. I'm guess they strip the object/embed tags for their own saftey and to help prevent abuse of future ads.
Google's ToS: Yahoo's ToS: See, google isn't (always) evil
It costs $10/month to host content on the web. So any website had to have $120 worth of value to survive for a year.
Then Google Adsense pays out less and less until your adsense adverts only makes $30/year with Google keeping the big share.
So Google makes hosting free, so now you can clone content from other web sites and stuff their index with pages worth absolutely nothing.
Just like Blogger has become stuffed full of computer generated blogs, scraping content from other sites out on the web. Content that can't even sustain the cost of hosting it on the web.
Google Pages, Google Word (or whatever they're calling it), Gmail, etc. etc. ... isn't this the online future that Netscape promised with Navigator 4? Presuming your browser handles the various tech, the OS you use really does become more or less irrelevant as all work is done entirely in the context of html.
We're seeing it with the bigger apps too....Siebel, Peoplesoft, Oracle (those are the ones I'm familar with) are all browser based. Sure a lot of the world (read: most of the world) is still running off of Excel workbooks and Word documents, but even Microsoft is toying with an online version of Office. I can almost imagine a time when a Mac mini really is all you need (with the exception of games, of course).
or is this story like a month old?
That's the one thing that really intrigues me about Google's Page Creator: The concept that it is capable of quickly creating simple, ad-hoc, "temporary pages. While you are absolutely correct about the non-availability of many GeoCities and AngelFire pages, if we know that about GooglePages from the start, then GooglePages won't seem like it's fallen into the same realm. GooglePages is a great place to post temporary or short-term pages for things like events, notes, and other stuff that don't require long-term storage. Once you're "done" with the page, just delete it and that's that. Yes, "grandma" can use it too for her "permanent" pages, but I think the real power of Page Creator is its quick-and-dirty approach.
If Google indexes GooglePages just like other sites, (accessible through Google's Web Search) they should then ensure that GooglePages that get deleted are removed from its index (maybe as an optional checkbox during the delete step?) You see, while we all certainly like archived information through the likes of the Way Back Machine and Google's page cache, is that really necessary for much of life's temporary information to permanently hold onto it? If you want long-term storage, then put it into a blog, a Wiki, or a site geared for long-term hosting.
I think the "killer app" aspect of GooglePages is its potential for temporary Web pages.
What do you think?
-Jim
http://gmailtips.com/
http://pagecreatortips.com/
http://googlepagestips.com/
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
Google gives away 2 GB with a Gmail account, but only 100 MB for web access. Why the difference?
Just a place I can put my little bit of GPL-ed code where it is accessible to anyone. Sometimes a project is just too small for sourceforge.
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
... and Slashdot didn't fix it, and instead, carried the screw-up.
Apple engineers, if you're reading this, please start working on your DOM model & Javascript.
In the past, my university's IT departments were models of Windows-centric ignorance regarding Mac OS X and Unix-workalikes. That's since changed and when I call about a network problem and tell them that I'm running OS X, they take my reports seriously rather than asking me to reboot my computer.
This last term (Winter quarter) my university introduced web-based grade submission. I pointed Safari at the website and was peremptorily notified that my browser (Safari 2.0.3) was not supported for not having a coherent DOM.
Apple does a lot of things right, especially as regards standards. But why does Apple choose to screw up so royally with something as important to developers as the DOM? This, really, is egg on Apple's face.
blog
As I understand it people did get in when signups were first taken a month ago. I personally got in a day before this proported launch:
:hover attributes, I'm not clear on if it's possible now. But one thing that would make it easier it to define elements smaller than a page which can be included like images and thus updated accross multiple pages.
Page: Words -- Defined
Status: Published
URL: *.googlepages.com/words
Last Updated: Mar 21
I am dismayed that google doesn't seem to automatically update it's search index when you hit publish. It'd much faster than crawling your pages.
To answer other's points:
I do edit static pages by hand in vi for my home page. I have installed a few "CMS" systems, and most of them go stale while my hand edited html is easy to keep updating. With google pages I think I created more new content in 4 hours than I have in the last 2 years, so it is easier and faster, but who know if I'll be keeping it up to date.
No, your gmail contact do not automatically get told that you have a googlepage, it's not integrated like chat and mail. It doesn't even use the spell checking from gmail (or any at all).
For some reason it consistantly will substitute 'P' for Ρ It's about right.
It could use some css attention. When you change the font of some text, it uses the font tag instead of a span; it would be better if you could just set the value for at least a limited set of CSS attributes per box in your current box (I.E. Color, Font-Family, Font-Size, Font-variant, Font-Weight, Line-Height, Text-Align etc.) It would be best if you could change the CSS for the layout.
No it does not integrate any photo-album, blogging, calendar, Customer Relations Management, Mailing Lists, Comments, Moderation Delegation, VRML2 or what have you. They have blogger for (some of) that.
I'm told it's a heck of a lot easier than Cyworld. Linking pages, externally or internally, editing them, and using images is surprisingly well done. I wonder if I can drop in some swf, svg, or stuff like that.
I'd personally like to make my subheading be a nicely styled menu with
yup.
-D
Not free, but it has worked well for some small business owners I know: www.homestead.com.
If people depend on Google for their searches, e-mail, instant messaging, maps, satellite views, advertising and news (beta).. they might as well use it for their web presence.
Anyone who has ever worked for the KGB must be so jealous at the rate of voluntary user data centralisation.
http://iwashere.googlepages.com/
(no ads, spam or whatever on the site. just some infos about googlepages.)
bye bye
100 MB of free storage space on Google's servers.
all it cost you is your privacy.
--meh--
It's so exciting when a company like Google can be such the object of obsession that when it rolls out a "New Document" feature, that's front page (pun intended) news.
--
make install -not war
An example below:a ricka.googlepages.com%2F
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fjp
Why not share the space with your GMail account - 2.7 GB would be more than enough...
"Google Page Creator is having a little trouble right now.
This is not because of anything you did; it's just a little hiccup in our system that will hopefully go away soon. We apologize for the inconvenience, and recommend you try reloading this page."
If nothing else, it provides a way to store 100meg of files and links. http://bigfoot48.googlepages.com/home
When I had signed up for gmail I included periods in my username. This works fine for email where some can send an email to either first.last@gmail.com or firstlast@gmail.com and it will reach my inbox. I had signed up for the beta only to find out that it appends my login to the url: http://first.last.googlepages.com./ This url doesn't resolve thus rendering the service completely useless.
:/
Thanks Goggle
FYI, the site is http://pages.google.com/ From the site, you will learn a few things. 1) No technical knowledge is required. You can build high-quality web pages without having to learn HTML or use complex software. 2) What you see is what you'll get. You can edit your pages right in your browser, seeing exactly how your finished product will look every step along the way. 3) You dont need to worry about hosting. Your web pages will live on your own site at http://yourgmailusername.googlepages.com/
tried adding bumchum@yahoo.com to the waitlist, and it thanked me for my interest! yay!
You know, as in "iWork = Keynote + Pages"?
I know it's "Google Pages", but seeing as how Microsoft can enforce "Windows" (and not only "Microsoft Windows"), isn't Goggle being a bit dumb on this one?
Finished making this with Google Pages just last night. It's actually really fun to work with... my only gripe is that there's no Safari support for us Mac users (but we can use Firefox.)
Comment of the year
i've had a googlepages site for quite a while... you can upload mp3s and whatever.. and i'm pretty sure you're own html... but best part.. NO ads. none.
Wow... how's that for a grammar dilemma. Already we have rediculously lose language skills inside the Slashdot peoples.
;-)
For a moment it reminded me of my Math professor who used to say "Open the doors of the windows and let the atmosphere come in"
I'd be happy if they let me use the rest of my remianing mailbox space for a page. I think I have 2.5 gigs left and probably will never use any more of it for e-mail.
its just like with myspace - why the fuck are you worried about privacy unless you are doing something stupid like telling the world you smoked marijuana the other day and other stupid crap like that - dont post shit on the net if you dont want it in somebody else's hands, whether its about drugs or how you pirated something or other
Now what?
Once I was a four stone apology. Now I am two separate gorillas.
I mean, I couldn't justify wasting bandwidth on something like a Freedonia Tourist Site, but now, the whole world can enjoy the follies of a small country run by a ruthless dictator with a grease-paint mustache ...
"He may look like an idiot, and talk like an idiot, but don't let that fool you. He really is an idiot." - Duck Soup
Well, at least when I tried to add scripts it pulled them out before display. That doesn't mean you can't work-around their parsing though.
Please!
This is the sort of stuff that pisses me off. I once thought about putting stuff up on "deviantart.com", but I cringed at their license requiring posters to surrender certain copyright aspects. In typical lawyerese, they tell you how you own what you submitted, then in a later page, paragraph, and clause, they take it or some of it back.
Now, I realise that what I create may be of no interest to all out there. I also realize that by posting someting on the Internet that it can be copied. But, under THOSE circumstances, I am not making any agreements with copies that they can do certain additional things with my works that normal copyright law would forbid so long as I don't enter into a written or certain types of non-written agreements.
And, I realize that free hosting sites (as do many commercial or business sites) DO need to back up their work for site operation and continuity of experience for the visitors.
So, after reading "deviantart.com"'s license I felt I had to write them. They SO FAR never wrote back. It's been since March 3rd, 20 full days. Apparently, they must feel incensed that I would challenge them and possibly open up the idea that they ard others are some sort of uncouth Artistic Intellectual Property vacuum machines.
As a solution, in addition to their asking for donations, they ALSO need to strike out the BS grab-action on people's IP and should start charging, even if they only charge $1 or $5 per month per artist. Like in micropayments.
=================
Below is the verbatim/entire text of the e-mail I sent them via my gmail account (which shows that I asked the wrong question of them). I am sure they'll try to claim they never got it. Or that their irresponsible web master/help manager erred in not forwarding it to their legal department for review....
==================
To: help@deviantart.com
Reply | Reply to all | Forward | Print | Trash this message | Show original
Hi,
I want to sign up, but I have a copyrights/intellectual property
rights concern.
I do have some technical background, so I fully appreciate and
understand the *technical* need to ensure the site operates nicely.
But, that does not require content owners to dilute their ownership of
their works as I interpret the "submission" agreement.
And, legally I understand your need to not be dragged into some
litigious process, so it is quite reasonable that require us to hold
you harmless and non-liable...
I have read the agreements and the submission agreement pages.
I understand (and expect):
2. Ownership. Artist at all times retains all right, title and
interest in and to the Artist Materials provided by Artist hereunder
(including, without limitation, the copyrights in and to the Artist
Materials), subject to the non-exclusive rights in the licenses
granted to deviantART under this Agreement. Artist is free to grant
similar rights to others during and after the Term of this Agreement.
=========
But, I would like to know why I must grant anyone some level of what I
feel results in "co-ownership" of my works. I feel this would result
based on my reading/interpretation of (From "submission"):
a) worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive license to use Artist's
name(s), group name, photograph and/or likeness(es) and biographical
materials in connection with the distribution, exploitation,
promotion, marketing and advertising of the Artist Materials, and the
deviantART Site(s)as described hereunder, during the Term;
=========
Thanks for clearing up matters, as I am someone who is quite loath to
surrender or dilute my 100% ownership of my works.
Regards,
David Syes
==================
I bunged that letter, and maybe THAT is why they didn't respond. However, I think they are smart enough to realize that and decided to not reply.
However, had I sent what I intended, I imagin
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
There are three extraneous and very verbose paragraphs leading up to the meat of your argument. Perhaps they started reading and got bored.
Linux: Free if your time is worthless.
...but there's no decent tools or page counters and such. The layouts are basic and you don't have a lot of options, but you can edit HTML very easily and I like the save and undo features. Very simple to add pages, make links in the text, add pictures. I give it an 8 out of 10.54976It saves your work if your browser dies or other such nonsense occurs. Great for beginners or lazy folks like me. I hope they make it more functional in the future. http://j4m3z.m1113r.googlepages.com/home Check it out! =]
Terrible karma and aiming lower, which in this environment of one-sided reason, is higher.
Since apparently not everyone can sign up right now, I put together Creating a GooglePage sampler with a few screenshots of the interface (WYSIWYG and HTML Editor) and some of the standard page layout templates. I figure that these servers can't be slashdotted, right?
The interface is actually quite easy and straightforward, although I have not found a template that I am completely happy with yet. A problem that I find a bit ironic is that I can't use the spellcheck option from the Google Toolbar in the WYSIWYG editor window, because it simply creates a mess. But this feature is not unique to googlepages - I have the same problem with the rich-text view of the wordpress.com blog editor as well.
I made a request just a couple days ago and they have me set up.
I suspect that the anonymous submitter and the Slashdot editor got the story slightly incorrect. I've had gmail and gtalk for a while. But I went to the googlepages.com site and added myself to the waitlist a few minutes ago. I noticed my userid and password information was already imputted to the appropriate login box. Well, I hit the login button, and whadaya know, I now have a working Google Page account.
Either Google has already set aside a web account for Gmail/Gtalk users, or they randomly prearranged for me access to the beta service (without a long wait). My suggestion would be to try logging in, using your gmail account, and see what happens. I'd give out my webpage address, but given that the name matches my email account, I think I'll pass on giving it out for now. (Nothing to look at anyway...)
There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, General Electric, and Exxon
I guess listed companies are inclined to "capture" existing companies. Whereas VC backed companies strive to "create" new markets.
God and religion are distinct
This is just an echo then ... if not a dupe. The beta for Google Pages and the Google Page Creator has been around for exactly one month now. Cannot read the article (slashdotted) but I don't think there is anything new to say about it. And even if there was, the place to search for it should would be this: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/
If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough. (Alan Kay)