I managed to get access to the Google Pages website at the weekend, and wasted a few moments building a quick page or two. I’m not even going to quote the address to see my efforts; it’s just not worth it. Suffice to say, I’m bitterly disappointed: it doesn’t seem to be much more than PowerPoint-style authoring brought to the web.
Why is Google bothering with this, when it already owns a brilliant webpage creation tool in Blogger? Honestly, the more time goes on, the more I see blogging platforms as the solution to big organisations’ CMS headaches. There must be a hidden agenda, surely.
Coincidentally (or perhaps not), I’ve just found references today to a ‘web 2.0’ site called Thumbstacks which – surprise surprise – puts PowerPoint-style presentations on the web. I really wonder why we’re pursuing this, when the guru of graphic presentation, Edward Tufte thinks PowerPoint is evil. Rather than emulating PowerPoint on the web, we should be looking to reinvent it.