On the Google Page Creator
Google is doing it again. Once it considered itself a search company only. Today? Well, the company can deny being a web portal as much as it wants, but there is no way denying it: A search engine providing a mail service, a web statistic package, a chat programme, discussion forums, a news service and so on and so forth, is a portal, no doubt about it.
The final proof: This page. This is a mini web site made by using the new Google Page Creator, a simple online editing and publishing service that lets you put up a new web site in minutes.
Our guess is that Google sees this as another part of the great plan of becoming the number 1 web destination for all kinds of web and search related activities. As soon as you have got your own Google log on ID (for instance by getting your own GMail account) you will be tempted to use this ID for all sorts of online behavior.
The next stage will be to include tools for using this and other services directly from the Google toolbar or the Google Desktop Search Tool, turning your desktop into the launching pad for everything web relevant. Yahoo! and MSN have indeed reason to be afraid.