Google has just announced a new Web service called Google Sites, and it offers manufacturing professionals large and small several options to promote and serve their businesses, and collaborate with others simply and effectively.
In essence, Google Sites is about building a Web site without needing to know how to build a Web site. No coding, design or advanced computer skills are needed.
Check out these features and descriptions:
- Single-click page creation - Creating a new page for your Google Site just takes the click of a button.
- No HTML required - Creating a Google Site is as easy as editing a document, which means there's no markup language for you to learn - just get started.
- Make it your own - (Google's) customization options let you give your Google Site your own look and feel.
- Get started with templates - (Google) offer(s) a growing list of page types -- web page, announcements, file cabinet, dashboard and list -- to help you get started with your Google Sites pages.
- Upload files and attachments - Use the file cabinet to upload files up to 10MB in size. Each Google Apps account receives at least 10GB of storage in Google Sites. Google Apps Premier and Education editions get an additional 500MB for each user account.
- Embed rich content - Google Sites is integrated with other Google products, so you can insert videos, docs, spreadsheets, presentations, photo slide shows, and calendars directly onto your Google Sites pages.
- Work together and share - (Google's) permission settings let you designate owners, viewers and collaborators (meaning they can edit pages) for your site. And you can make your Google Sites available to just a few people, your entire organization, or the world.
- Search with Google - You can search across Google Sites pages and content using powerful Google search technology. You'll find specific pages and documents instantly, the same way you would on Google.com.
What does all this mean for manufacturers? You can create a useful Web site for your company. You can create an Intranet (internal site) to serve you company, employees, sales force, etc. You can create private sites to serve a project and only invite the project members. You can create training sites for your employees.
The point is that you can create a Web site - without knowing how.
More Google... on the heels of Google releasing their latest endeavor, the Knol (beta version of course), I decided to jump into the pool of universal knowledge and make my contribution.
Rotary Broaching Passes the Test
It's not the most savvy of articles, nor the most interesting, but it is my early attempt to contribute to the larger body of knowledge it will soon become. Knol has been touted as a competitor for Wikipedia, and I was working on a new article anyway. I've heard many comments about manufacturing knowledge in wikipedia, and that it always seemed to be lacking something. I'm not sure if it's manufacturers just trying to keep their secrets close to their vests, or lack of the embracing the technology (that is explored often on this website). I hope the two don't become another great resource largely unused by the manufacturing community; I really like Google's approach to many things. Anyway, let me know if you think if contributing to the Knol is a step in the right direction.