Starting a New Website - Using Google Apps
- Filed under: Blog Development
- Date: Jun 19,2009
What is |
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Apps? |
This allows you to use a comprehensive suite of applications to run your collaborative projects. It is not only a Website, it is Email, Calendar, Chat, and Document sharing.
As the administrator of Google Apps Standard Edition (Free) you grant logins to your readers and friends, give them the ability to communicate effectively via gmail accounts, google chat, a calendar planner and the sharing of spreadsheets and word docs. As a frontend Google Sites will allow the world to see what your community efforts have amounted to. These apps have been proven to work for entire universities therefore it will work for your internet project.
You can pay for premier (read more) to get 25GB storage but I will give you a low-down on the standard edition which is free. (read more from Google on Standard apps)
I am a business and want to use this professionally:
The current Google offer (Jul 09) for premier is:
$50 per user per year after trial
What FREE services do they provide?
GMAIL - I am a fan of gmail and use it over other free email services for the past 4 years. I think Hotmail sux. Gmail is clean, simple, works off slow connections and provides an amazing amount of free storage space. (It is 3GB and counting…) Within the gmail page is a sidebar for inbox folders and googlechat to see when your contacts are also using gmail.
If you own your own domain name you can point the MX entries to the Google mail servers and get customized emails. ie: johnny@domain.com
Set your MX entries up like this and get Google to manage your mail with heaps of GB storage for free - how good is that? One for each user of your community
ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM 10
ALT1.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM 20
ALT2.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM 20
ASPMX2.GOOGLEMAIL.COM 30
ASPMX3.GOOGLEMAIL.COM 30
ASPMX4.GOOGLEMAIL.COM 30
ASPMX5.GOOGLEMAIL.COM. 30
CALENDAR - Organize your schedule and share events with friends
DOCS - Share online documents, presentations, and spreadsheets
SITES - Create websites and group wikis. Read more on using Google Sites.
STORAGE - 10GB for free to store all your docs and sites info. (This is not an FTP server, you cant dump whatever you want up there - use Mozy for that)
The Price is Right
For a free service this is pretty damn good. I guess if you are one of those people who hate Google then do not use this option. But I personally like what they have done for the internet in recent years. They have turned a sprawling chaotic mess (the internet) into an efficient tool through Search and now provide free easy-to-use services for everyone to utilize.
But for complete control pay for private hosting. I currently use Bluehost as they have all the simple scripts to quickly setup whatever platform you could possibly want. For a free option - use Google Apps.
Final Verdict
Google Apps lets you setup massive web communities for free. Find a niche, get a domain name (can get it with google for $10), setup an online collaboration.
Blogmonies - Starting a New Website Series
- Using Google Apps
- Using Google Sites
- Using Wordpress
- Using Blogger
