Google in Japan and Google Page Creator

Ooh, have I got some Googley goodness for you. All wrapped up in one tidy post, even!

First, Loren Baker from the excellent Search Engine Journal gave me a heads up to his post titled Hanging Out With Google Japan, in which he apparently got to take as many canned coffees from the snack machines as he wanted to. Just kidding - but you should really check out the great pictures he got from the Google Japan offices; I loved the giant Google home page on the wall.

And, Google has been quite the busy little bee, you know, in between getting subpoenaed by the Department of Justice, censoring Chinese search results, etc., and today rolled out Google Page Creator, a "a free online tool that makes it easy for anyone to create and publish useful, attractive web pages in just minutes."

Let's test that claim. I'm setting my timer....okay, GO.

Experiment abruptly halted by this blurb:

"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."

This exact same thing happened with Google Analytics. So, I've put my name on the waiting list and I'll keep you posted on what happens. Kind of a downer, actually - I was all set to try it out.

Related: While we're waiting for Google Page Creator, why not check out a few other search engines of note:

• BrainBoost: BrainBoost is an automated question-answering search engine. Here's how it works: you type in a question, any question, and instead of merely matching your search query in page text and titles like other search engines, BrainBoost actually goes the next logical step and sorts through the search results for you, then extracts the answer to your question
• Search.com: Search.com, being part of the CNET network, also gives you instant access to their stable of technology sites, which include CNET.com (obviously), Download.com, and ZDNet.com.
• Clusty:Clusty is a metasearch engine, meaning it combines results from a variety of different sources. However, Clusty adds a bit of extra search engine goodness in the mix by giving you clustered results.
• FirstGov: FirstGov.gov is an absolutely mammoth search engine/portal that gives the searcher direct access to searchable information from the United States government, state governments, and local governments.
• AuctionMapper: AuctionMapper is an extremely cool search engine that focuses only on eBay listings. Sure, eBay has it's own site search; but AuctionMapper takes that site search and goes a few steps further.

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