Google Answers Bites the Dust

One of my favorite little "hidden secrets" in the Google empire has been shuttered. Google announced today that they're shutting down Google Answers, the service where a team of pros answered user questions for a fee. Google calls it a failed experiment, but my guess is that the company simply prefers easy automation over more complex human input. Farewell!

New Google Page Creator Features

One of the least-known of Google's offerings is Google Page Creator. This is a web page creation tool and hosting community. You use Google Page Creator to create your web pages (no HTML required) and then host those pages, for free, on Google's site. Now Google Page Creator features an image editor for all the pictures you want to post, as well as the ability to create up to three different sites, each with its own *.googlepages.com URL. In addition, all pages you create with Google Page Creator are now automatically converted for mobile use, so they'll be viewable from any mobile phone. It's a great alternative to GeoCities, AngelFire, and similar web hosting sites -- and, as with all things Google, it's completely free!

New Version of Google Desktop and Sidebar

Google has just released version 4.5 of Google Desktop. The big change in this version is an improved Sidebar, which is now transparent -- just like the sidebar in Yahoo! Widgets and Windows Vista. It looks much better on the desktop.