Back in February, the Google Press Center announced the launch of Google Page Creator, a browser based tool for creating and editing web pages. This morning, a patent application was published which appears to describe some of the processes and details behind the tool.
The attraction behind Google Page Creator is that it enables people to create web pages without having to learn HTML, and hosts the pages created for free. Chris Sherman had a great write-up of the service on the day of the press notification – Google Introduces Web Page Creator. In it, he noted that Justin Rosenstein was the product manager for the new tool, and Chris includes some comments from the Google team leader about the history behind the development of the service.
Matt Cutts, on the same day over at his blog, also posted a look at a number of the templates that users could choose from when they are making pages. The help page for the Page Creator also includes some screen shots, and details about how it lets people create static web pages. The Google Adsense Blog also shows how to put adsense on the pages of your googlepages blog.
There is also a great deal of discussion, and information on the Google Page Creator Discussion Group (No longer available) pages, including a “How to for beginners.”
I don’t believe that I’ve visited any pages made using tools from Google Page Creator before, but there are a few linked to in the Discussion Group. It looks like people have been having some fun making sites.
The patent application doesn’t appear in the US Patent and Trademark Office assignment database yet, so it isn’t officially assigned to Google. But, the people listed as inventors seem to all be Google employees, and the first name listed is Justin Rosenstein’s, who was the team leader for the Page Creator.
Web page authoring tool for structured documents
Invented by Justin M. Rosenstein, Dana A. Levine, Ojan Vafai, Aaron Boodman, Lilly Christine Irani, and David Jeske
US Patent Application 20060248442
Published November 2, 2006
Filed: April 29, 2005
Abstract
A web page is composed using a browser that displays an authoring web page containing an authoring tool embedded in the authoring web page. The authoring web page, as displayed in a browser window, includes a web page editing region that displays a web page under construction. The web page editing region further includes one or more user-specified instances of structured fields, each instance responsible for hosting content entered directly by the web page author through the browser window or identified by the web page authoring using the authoring tool. A composed web page is published, for example on the Internet. Thereafter, the composed web page can be rendered in a browser window of any client computer or device in a style consistent with the user-entered content in the web page editing region.
It would be interesting to see Google try to build some social aspects into widgets for these pages. Right now, it appears to be a more intuitive Geocities, with some smart tweaks to it.
Hi Alan,
Might this pass a patent examiner’s inquiry into whether this is something new, non-obvious, and useful? I don’t know. A patent examiner will have months or longer to make that decision.
There’s been a lot of time and effort put into the development of this product by some people who are pretty good developers. Filing for a patent application is one way of getting people to reconsider any notion of building a knockoff with only a few cosmetic changes.
It does look like it is more intuitive to use and more advanced than some of the options built into programs like the pagemaker tools in Geocities, but I’m not sure that is a significant and meaningful distinction.
Without more means to allow people to connect between pages on a social level like available in myspace, it doesn’t seem like a strong competitor in that area.
But it does provide people a means of building a site in a manner that makes it easy to create pages. As a first step for many who haven’t been online before, it may provide them with the first steps towards having a web site, and maybe even an online business. The easy integration of adsense into those pages may help build a larger advertising marketplace, too.
Bill:
I understand what they are doing. But why the patent app? What is different or unique about this tool ?
Is it the real time aspect that differentiates this?
Alan