Anyone tried this yet?

https://www.google.com/accounts/ServiceLogin?service=pages&continue=http%3A%2F%2Fpages.google.com%2F

I wonder how long before they allow it to be "hosted" by a domain name of your choice? Didn't I also read that google is now accredited to sell domains?

Within a year or two, I predict google will change the way "budget website creation and hosting" is bought and sold.

:)

Not all that great:
http://fac3less.googlepages.com/home

Nonetheless now google wins. ;)

I knew this would happen. It's only a matter of time:

http://news.com.com/Google+unveils+Web+page+creator/2100-1038_3-6042357.html?ta

Either that or they may take all the cheap people away from hosting companies so we all can make more money. 8-) The tool is just as bad as sitestudio though, but with a kagillion dollars, you can do anything.

It certainly didn't die when Yahoo entered the market.

Its not going to be much, it's going to be really small hosting for people who don't know how to program...

I do not understand why you think this will cause the slow death of web hosting?

This "Google is going to kill web hosting" thing is getting really old...

Well,

the slow meaning, now they are entering the market. It will only be a matter of time before they make real plans, like what Yahoo has done and since they have uber amounts of money, they might actually hire real support people and improve even more. Slow also meaning they just keep adding more and more features until other hosting companies just can't keep up. They also have a heavily branded name and get free advertising on the most popular search engine....at least for now.

Jack of all trades, master of none.

When McD's came into your town, did the local burger joint or steak place go out of business (and if they did, were they any good to begin with)? Sure if you offer the exact same service as Google, you're gonna feel it, but if you offer other things, including personalized support, it could actually bolster your sales...I'll leave the phd explanation to someone else. ;)

- John C.

There are some more details and a screen shot on McCracken's blog.

http://blogs.pcworld.com/techlog/archives/001496.html

As for domain registration well it should be noted that Google is now an accredited registrar. Also note the absence of advertising.

So the real question is why are they doing this? Do they want to dominate the web hosting industry? I think not.

They have already demonstrated an interest in publishing content as is evidenced by Blogger and Google Base. For the most part, however, they are catering to individuals. More on the line of 'personal publishing'. I don’t think they have any intention of 'getting into the web hosting business'. They don't want to deal with customer complaints, technical support or basically any human facing activity. That is not their style. They are self-serve all the way and that is why they are keeping it simple.

Yahoo is their closest competitor at present and they offer free and paid web hosting including web design and everything you could want in a web hosting company (or so they say). So will Google emulate that? Probably not in the near term. First of all, they don’t emulate. Secondly, Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. Helping people publish information is indirectly helping to organize the world’s information. Web hosting in it’s full glory. It is just a ways to an end and in this case I think Google want to go directly to the end.

Anyway, just one Google Watcher’s opinion.

So the real question is why are they doing this? Do they want to dominate the web hosting industry? I think not.

Of course not. That's not their mandate. I don't think anyone seriously believes google will get into the "web hosting industry" and try to actually compete directly against the major players.

That's not the point...

For the most part, however, they are catering to individuals. More on the line of 'personal publishing'. I don’t think they have any intention of 'getting into the web hosting business'. They don't want to deal with customer complaints, technical support or basically any human facing activity. That is not their style. They are self-serve all the way and that is why they are keeping it simple.

.....

It is just a ways to an end and in this case I think Google want to go directly to the end.


Agreed. But google also wants to make money. They need to make money. That is their goal, and is at the end of every decision. It's what their shareholders demand, and is what they must deliver. They didn't go public because it was fun. And shareholders don't hang on to stock that doesn't produce results.

Thus... I don't think they will call it "web hosting".. but I do believe google will get into the "content delivery" business. It's what the vast majority of website owners on the internet need and want, and I can't think of any better way for google to get their hands on website information/content, then to actually host it themselves. Millions of current and new website owners (those with simple sites, etc) will flock to google's "content delivery" solution.

Plus... (here's the money part), I'm sure there will (eventually) be various upgrades and services you can get. (Perhaps in exchange for more ads, or no ads, etc.) They gotta make money, after all.. plain and simple. And having control over the content source is pretty powerful.

Just look at the hundreds of "free forum hosts" around. These guys are making a fortune off of adsense. Imagine if google ran those forum servers... then they wouldn't have to pay out the ad sales on the ads they're serving... they'd keep it all "inhouse" and make that much more money.

But google also wants to make money. They need to make money. That is their goal, and is at the end of every decision. It's what their shareholders demand, and is what they must deliver. They didn't go public because it was fun. And shareholders don't hang on to stock that doesn't produce results.

MrZippy, I respectfully have to disagree with you. Maybe that will change but for now they don't care about making money. The don't care if their stock loses value. Have a look at the recent Time Magazine article on Google. Melissa Mayer has a rule where she fines anyone caught looking at the stock price. They left $80 million on the table because they decided not to add advertising to image-search results. Sure this could be just PR but they certainly keep it consistent. If they wanted to make money they could place ads on blogger, but they don't

Thus... I don't think they will call it "web hosting".. but I do believe google will get into the "content delivery" business. It's what the vast majority of website owners on the internet need and want, and I can't think of any better way for google to get their hands on website information/content, then to actually host it themselves. Millions of current and new website owners (those with simple sites, etc) will flock to google's "content delivery" solution

I think you have something here in that it may be about Google getting their hands the publishing process so they can steer it in a direction that could provide richer data for their search engine through better tagging or structuring of information. As for millions of new website owners flocking to Google's "content deliver" solution I am not so sure. I would say that one could even argue that Google bringing web publishing to the masses may increase overall interest in publishing and that other companies might actually benefit from those that outgrow what Google has on offer.

My gut feeling, however, tells me they did simply because it is cool and have not yet decided on an end-game for it.

You do make some good points.

But at the end of the day, all they really need to do is say something like:

"If you host your website with us, it will get better placement in our search engine."

Of course, it will be worded differently... but I can't think of a better way to manage content for their own engine, then to manage the content itself.

And that will be the beginning of the end for low-budget web hosting as we know it. After all, the point of a website is to be found, right?

It's a gross over-simplification and exaggeration.. but you see the point.

I started a thread on this today, too... (I didn't see this one)

Perhaps the mods can merge them?

http://webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=489568

Well, did Geocities kill the hosting market..............?

When google can offer better personalized support than I can I will start worrying..

As we can all see Godaddy/Yahoo have not really made much of an impact that I can see and yes I have 'lost' a few but many have come back and there will always be a need for a reliable host with stable services that will give you top notch support when you need it.

Well, did Geocities kill the hosting market..............?Well, is Geocities an accepted verb in the english language......?

There is a difference between Google (which my grandmother knows) and Geocities (which WHT knows). When Google does things, everyone knows about it. The buzz alone is heard worldwide. That is what makes their entry into any market a major event.

- John C.

Well, did Geocities kill the hosting market..............?
No, but geocities also did not have:

- an "installed" user base of a hundred million.
- one of the most recognizable "brands" in the world, both online and offline.
- 100 million on liquid cash to spend on whatever they think is "neat".
- multiple streams of revenue that are not dependent on "web hosting"
- etc...

Google is unique in the industry, in that pretty much *anything* they decide to offer is immediately trusted, accepted, and used by millions of people.

When google can offer better personalized support than I can I will start worrying..

They won't need to.

Whatever "system" they end up offering will be so brain-dead easy to use.. that even my grandmother will be able to create a website and have it immediately "indexed" by google.

Look at gmail. There are millions of users, because it's one of the easiest to use webmail systems, and it just "works".

Whatever they offer for "website building" will be the same. [/QUOTE]

I don't think they'll ever venture beyond the basic 1 or 2 page simple website stuff, though. If they do, then I would agree it will be difficult to support.

But that "1 or 2 page website" market is huge, and is likely what makes up the majority of most budget web host's customer base.

If google does get into the market... you might say, "We're better because we offer personal support and service."

To which the customer might reply, "But we don't NEED support if we use gWebsite".

Well, did Geocities kill the hosting market..............?
And neither did Freewebs.

It depends on what Google is up to - in the long run. If they're only doing something that's a little more on the website side than the Blogger, that may actually be a gateway drug to "real hosting" from a "real host". But if they're aiming for the total domination as some people claim...

Well, it'll be interresting to watch. :popcorn: I'm sure good hosts and skilled web guys will be just fine, even if this giant manages to change the landscape.

Google couldn't make web hosting competition die if it wanted to....

Google couldn't make web hosting competition die if it wanted to....
And I'm pretty sure there were many who didn't think google would ever be "better" then altavista.

Now.. most people don't even remember altavista...

I hated Geocities. No matter how hard I made the password, I would get hacked. After the second time, I just bought a domain.

No, but geocities also did not have:

- an "installed" user base of a hundred million.
- one of the most recognizable "brands" in the world, both online and offline.
- 100 million on liquid cash to spend on whatever they think is "neat".
- multiple streams of revenue that are not dependent on "web hosting"
- etc...

Google is unique in the industry, in that pretty much *anything* they decide to offer is immediately trusted, accepted, and used by millions of people.

Google doesn't actually have "multiple" streams of revenue. The vast majority of their revenue is derived from advertising and many investors and financial institutions have complained in the past about Google being a one-trick pony.

I see this page creator thing as another way for Google to draw eyeballs and enhance branding. It's all speculation now, but my gut feeling is that Google is not going to be selling web hosting like Yahoo. All of its services are free. They could easily charge for Google Analytics but they don't. Why? To build a user base. To further promote their brand as this exciting, innovative, altruistic force. In the end I feel that Google is just trying to garner more eyeballs to deliver advertising.

I don't have a problem competing against Google unless they have an unfair advantage. This part of the news worries me:

"Unlike pages made using its competitor's products, those created using the new Page Creator tool will be available to anyone using Google's search engine within a few hours."

It sounds like they are giving priority to indexing pages created with their software. If so, that isn't fair to the rest of us. It's just like Microsoft killing the competition by using their inside knowledge of the OS to write applications for it. And if it turns out to be true we will have a tough time competing for the small businesses that just want to get content and listings up quickly.

I'm not worried about the very loyal clients I have now, but I'm afraid that getting new ones just got harder.

Scott

I believe Google's page creator FAQ states that pages on the service get indexed faster but do not receive preferential treatment. I think the cool thing about the Page Creator tool is the slick AJAX interface and the fact that it outputs XHTML strict code and automatically implements CSS hacks for cross browser compatibility. Right now, the tool is is very obviously targeted towards beginners and the Geocities crowd.

It certainly didn't die when Yahoo entered the market.

This is very true. In regards to your post on web hosting dying out, I think not. Google may be a high profile company, and very customer centric, but they surely aren't web hosting. These companies do not capitalize on industries such as web hosting, yes they do offer web hosting, and site creators...no big deal. Their main objective is search engine marketing and related terms. Frankly they earn more off of advertising to the WORLD than they would in web hosting any day of the week.

You should be more worried about GoDaddy, and their hosting...I see them more as a threat then Google quite honestly.

If google does get into the market... you might say, "We're better because we offer personal support and service."

To which the customer might reply, "But we don't NEED support if we use gWebsite".

I am not sure about that point. For what I have seen, there is a tight relationship between websites owners, web designers and web hosts. There's a reason why there are thousands of web hosts and not just two or three holding the biggest share of the market, as it is usually the case a tech market: this is what was mentioned earlier, "the personal touch", the special care a small web host provides to his customer.

If ever Google page creator brings changes on the web hosting market, that will most likely be by taking away cheap web hosting offered to people who don't need the extra care - wish is not a really profitable segment anyway - and push web hosting companies toward offering quality, custom hosting offers and support a multitude of web applications.

Sure Google can do web hosting just like Go Daddy, Yahoo, and any other major brand like 1 and 1, A Plus, Pow Wow (errr that the name?), Ipower Web (I think that is a name again?)... ok getting to the point I am trying to make....

They will take customers away that is for sure, but as long as you have quality service, great support, and good prices then you should not have anything to worry about. Just because it is a name brand company means nothing look at Go Daddy you hear people complain about them a lot about web hosting. Though I hear that they are good with domain names. Same thing could be with Google.

Free webhosts or cheap paid hosts may take a hit on the amount of people signing up for service, but it won't be the deathknell to an industry.

Even users of a simple free hosting service want/expect support regardless of if you think it's so simple and easy to use. Beyond template email's google rarely if ever supports their products in a 1on1 fashion which will severely limit its appeal.

Thank you for your interest in Google Page Creator! Google Page Creator has experienced extremely strong demand, and, as a result, we have temporarily limited the number of new signups as we increase capacity. In the meantime, please submit your email address and we will notify you as soon as we are ready to add new accounts. Thank you for your patience.

Couldn't get in with my gmail account :(

For once it would be nice if Google did something original. You know, innovate, create something that hasn't been done before. They're just hashing old concepts, and using their massive brand to leverage into such existing markets, be that search, email, hosting, etc etc etc.

Someone let me know when Google creates something truly unique. :uhh:

As far as Google taking over webhosting, not a snowflakes chance in hell. There's plenty of room in the market, and google will offer a limited scope of hosting, leaving lots of room in the overall marketspace. :)

If and only if Google decides to concentrate, setup the necessary support for web hosting rather than just rely on pure computing capacity, I think there is nothing much to worry. A lot of users will just sign up because it is free. Maybe it will draw some users away from other free providers, but damage should be limited. But if they really want to focus on web hosting, that would be worrying.

I don't see that happening too soon, a giant like Google have much better things to do that have a higher ROI than web hosting.

Google is all about delivering more users to what makes them money - Google Adwords and to a certain degree, Google Adsense.

It would only make logical sense for Google to offer some sort of "web page creator" program to get more mom and pop businesses on the Internet and then get them hooked into either Adwords or Adsense where they will make money.

I will add my 2 cts to this discussion with what Adam Bosworth (Google VP of Engineering) said during a Keynote speech he made at the Zend/PHP Conference that I attended in November last year.

According to him, value on the web is in building a community which generates content. "Community + Content" is a combination which has a tremendous value in Google perspective.

There might be extra purpose for Google to provide a free AJAX online site builder, but I bet that their main reason follows what Adam mentioned in his Keynote: Google's goal is to help people add content on the web and grow the community around Google... at least for Google executives it seems to be ultimately worth a lot of money and I tend to think they are right.

I agree with Bob that Google isn't creating anything unique. But I see an analogy here with Microsoft Windows....it wasn't unique either. MS saw the potential in things that others had invented and figured out how to do it better. So much better that what started as an improved version of DOS became a platform that gave them the lead in word processing, spreadsheets, databases, etc, etc. There was plenty of good competition out there when MS started down that path and not many of us believed we would see the death of Lotus, WordPerfect, Novell, etc.

I'm beginning to think that Google can do the same. They aren't inventing anything new but they are coming up with innovative ways to do those things better. With hosting it may just be a small side market aimed at novices, or it may be the beginning of something much bigger that changes the way we think about hosting. Only time will tell. I just hope I know when is the right time to sell if it comes to that!

Scott

For once it would be nice if Google did something original. You know, innovate, create something that hasn't been done before. They're just hashing old concepts, and using their massive brand to leverage into such existing markets, be that search, email, hosting, etc etc etc.It's the way that they rehash them that makes Google unique. Somehow, they make them simple, easy to use. Other than that, I totally agree. Nothing new. One would think that with their massive brand they would be able to create new standards, invent wonderful things that will serve mankind, things that we don't even know we need yet.

There's plenty of room in the market, and google will offer a limited scope of hosting, leaving lots of room in the overall marketspace.Agreed!

In a way, Google is unique. How many companies started out as a search engine & branched out this far? Google has even become a new term now. I hear people say it all the time.

I will add my 2 cts to this discussion with what Adam Bosworth (Google VP of Engineering) said during a Keynote speech he made at the Zend/PHP Conference that I attended in November last year.

According to him, value on the web is in building a community which generates content. "Community + Content" is a combination which has a tremendous value in Google perspective.

Gosh, pfoutran, that sounds like a page from the Yahoo playbook:popcorn:

Google is all about delivering more users to what makes them money - Google Adwords and to a certain degree, Google Adsense.

It would only make logical sense for Google to offer some sort of "web page creator" program to get more mom and pop businesses on the Internet and then get them hooked into either Adwords or Adsense where they will make money.

I would want to add that Googles secondary goal after driving their cash cow (AdWords/Adsense) is staying relevant on the web.

It's entirely possible one day that even Google could fall by the wayside as users change their surfing or searching habits. As the web evolves, so do people, many may fall into community centric sites like MySpace or other sticky properties directly accessing them while bypassing google as their portal.

Google has had it's honeymoon, heck it was overdue LONG ago.. and now it's not looking as rosy. As others have pointed out, they often get credit for re-hashing old ideas as new, and often they're still not even implemented as well as they could have been.

A lot of the early adopters and tech savvy folks that were originally Google users are also the ones getting tired of the Google hype.

Besides GMail, Froogle, I'd challenge anyone to say what "Google has done for us lately" that's not in closed-beta, and not a pile o' crap. ;)

It's the way that they rehash them that makes Google unique. Somehow, they make them simple, easy to use.
Yeah, but it's great for the net, them bringing all them n00bs into the market, that might have stayed away. I've often thought of developing a hosting brand that targetted this section of the market (site builder + domains etc) but the fear of working with n00bs has kept me at a safe distance. :D

In a way, Google is unique. How many companies started out as a search engine & branched out this far? Google has even become a new term now. I hear people say it all the time.
Google is a term as far as the verb for searching on the net for something.

I googled it . . . go and google it . . . look what I googled . . . had a date with Jenny but cancelled after I googled her and found out she . . . :D

That word hasn't expanded beyond that definition.

Ive been hearing all this "the sky is falling" since way back when.

I reckon if you stand still long enough, anything will crash down on you.

Flexibility and change management are not google owned concepts.

my .02

I think they have a good chance. They have the cash to operate an excellent hosting business that offers websites virtually no downtime (load balanced). One day we will see a monster that gulps the little fish and that's why you need to be prepared and expand into other area's and not just focus on webhosting.

No, I mean I've heard people say itin person & they weren't referring to the internet.

"Google that aisle!"

That's it I am selling all my servers and unloading my customer base.

Google is coming, google is coming, google is coming.

Wonder if EV1 is shaking in their boots too?

I found some more exciting info at http://www.googlepages.in

It says that creating googlepages can reveal your email id to spammers and i think thats true !! :angry: