Google’s recent page creator has drawn some conflicting views. I’ll pluck two out here.
Scoble is broadly in favour:
I see a lot of bloggers saying “so” about Google’s new Web Page Creator. I think bloggers often miss the larger conversation that we should be having: the Office Live team tells me that 45% of small businesses don’t have a Web site at all.
Congrats to Google for trying to do something to bring more people onto the Web. That’s the conversation we should be having.
While Dave Winer states:
This evening Google launched a totally unremarkable page creator web app. It’s a nice Ajax text editor, with templates, but why isn’t it part of Blogger, or at least connected to Blogger, and where is the feed? The sites have no structure.
Where is the Mind of Google these days? Seems to be back in the mid-90s, re-discovering Geocities. Give me a ring when there’s at least some rudimentary content management in there.
I’m actually with Scoble on this one. I think a lot of the criticisms are missing the point. Some people don’t want a blog, they don’t want to update their sites on a daily basis. I think this is a good, easy to use solution for folk who just want to have a few photos up on the web, or a message to pass on to friends or family. Issues like CMS and RSS would mean nothing to these people, and nor should they.
In truth, the new Google service simply isn’t for people like Winer, or indeed Scoble. I myself can’t think of a reason why I would need to use it. But for the thousand’s of non tech-savvy web users out there, it could be really helpful.