Many people were wondering what Google was doing with Jot, the wiki service that Google acquired in 2006. The answer came last week with the launch of Google Sites. According to Google, Google Sites, "...was designed to allow you to easily create a network of sites and share them with whomever you choose."
The response to Google Sites has been lukewarm. Dan Farber of CNET wants to know, "What's all the fuss?" Dennis Howlett wasn't impressed. Ditto for The Global Geek Podcast.
Google Sites Requires A Google Apps Account
I wanted to see for myself so I dove into Google Sites to see what they have there. The most important thing to state up front is that you need to be a Google Apps customer (free or paid) to use this service. Most probably got started with Google Apps to leverage Gmail on their personal or business domains. Since the launch of Google Apps, Google has integrated Calendar, Docs and now Google Sites as add on functionality for your domain. So what does all that mean? It means that Google Sites isn't a service you sign up for with an email address and get started. It's one part of the larger domain application offering by Google.
Google Sites Is Not For Public Facing Websites
From a design perspective, Google Sites does not have the features to allow an individual or brand to represent to the world in a totally unique way. You can add a logo and change colors of links and backgrounds. You don't have access to CSS or much ability to reconfigure the base layout of the site. As it stands now your final product will look very basic. It's more about utility to get access to the features than it is about designing a site for the world to see.
Google Sites Is Meant For Collaboration Amongst Defined Groups
There's no interactivity available to those who are not a part of your domain. For example, each page can have comments and file attachments but only those logged in to their apps account on your domain can get to these features. So don't look to build an ad-hoc community with Google Sites. You're better off using a bulletin board or CMS application to do that. Google Sites will work best for work groups and maybe families who all want to be on the same page. Another example of this is the fact that there is email subscription to updates but no RSS feeds available.
Google Sites Is Optimized For Use With Other Google Apps
It is very easy to integrate videos from YouTube as well as gDocs and gCal. Other services don't integrate so easily. For example, I tried to insert a Flickr slideshow into a page and the embed tags got stripped out. But adding a Picasa slideshow was a snap. The features for adding dynamic content rely heavily on Google Gadgets as well. If you're not using the suite of Google applications it is pretty obvious that your feature set will be limited.
Google Sites Is Easy But There Is A Learning Curve
Building pages and integrating content (subject to the limitations mentioned above) is easy. Everything involves either pasting links or dealing with a WYSIWYG editor. Each team member who uses this will need to take some time to learn the layout and options for adding different types of pages to the site. There are currently five different types of pages you can create and a user needs to understand the features of each one in order to make the right choice. And it's also a fact that this will be a new system for just about everyone.
Google Is Targeting Services Like WebEx Office
WordPress, Drupal and systems like them are not going to lose market share due to Google Sites. The real target are online business collaboration tools. WebEx Office, 37Signals are two examples of services being challenged by the new Google offering. These are systems whose user groups are typically on the same domain (Gmail). They're sharing files (GDocs). They coordinating schedules (GCal). Sometimes they're chatting in real time (Google Talk).
You Can Build Limited Websites With Google Sites
I built a website in order to learn the system and see what I could do. See The Brother Love Shrine to check out what I came up with. It's not too bad I think. But other platforms offer much better tools for creating artistic websites. You do have the option to share all the sites you create with the entire world. Or you can limit them to the people on your domain. It's also important to point out that there are no stats available for this service and you can't add Google Analytics tracking codes. This is yet another sign that sites built on this platform are really not meant to be serious public websites.
The Best Feature Of This Service Is
The ability to create multiple sites makes Google Sites a very powerful application. This gives every logical work group or project within an organization the ability to have their own collaboration space. You can invite everyone on your domain to a site. Or you can invite select people. You can also invite people from outside the domain to be a part of the site. This is helpful for consultants working with clients at other companies. There are also basic tools for allowing you to create a site directory as each site can have one or more categories added that can be browsed from a single page.
In short, if you're looking for a collaboration tool that can leverage your use of other Google apps services then this is probably the best one out there. Google Sites is also a good tool for building a budget intranet that has most of the basic features that smaller companies will need. I plan to create a screencast soon to show others how Google Sites works. Til then I hope that this post provides you with some information that can help you make a decision on whether or not this new offering is worth your time and effort.
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