Google Groups vs Google Sites

Socialtext has released version 4.0 of its enterprise social platform, and the main new feature is the ability to create groups. At first glance it seems that it's a little feature, and the new release is issued only for PR. However, all genious is simple, and Socialtext - is one of those companies that earn good money on these things. Groups - online spaces for communication and collaboration - are important for enterprise. These may be department-centric spaces, or workspaces for project teams, or communities of interest (yes, they are also useful for business, as they bring staff together). But how easy it is to create an online group space, for example, in Sharepoint? It's complicated enough for not creating it at all.

Finally Google has made this simple and logical move - Google Groups have been added to its online suite of business applications. Google Groups allow you to create workspaces for departments or projects that include wiki, discussions and files. And also Google Groups allow you to quickly provide access to the various elements in Google Apps (documents, calendars, videos, sites) to certain group of employees. And when the user is excluded from the group, he loses access to all the associated resources. Groups in Google Apps can be created either by the administrator or users themselves, if the administrator has allowed this. The group owner set up access rules, public access options, invites participants and moderate their actions.

For those businesses that still don't realize that the great majority of their customers coming (or would like to come) to their site via smartphones, Google launched the new initiative GoMo. This service allows you to see how your site looking in the mobile browser and find an appropriate service for building mobile site version (Google Sites is also in the list). Who should think about the mobile site version? First of all, it's online stores. Because browsing stores on a smartphone - is the most popular activity among those sitting in a toilet. Second, that are local businesses: cafes, restaurants, hotels, shops, medical services, hair salons, car repair ... - all the things that city visitor or local inhabitant may need.

As you know, Google services are popular both for business and for personal use. That is why, many users often have a need to switch from working to personal account (for example, to check mail). This required multiple logout/login procedures. But now this process will be much more easier - Google is rolling out multi-account sign-in that allows to switch between accounts using the top menu. You can activate this feature and add accounts on this page. However, switching between accounts will work not for all services - only for GMail, Google Calendar, Google Reader, Google Sites, Google Voice, App Engine and Google Code. In addition, those who activate multi-account sign-in - would have to to give up the offline features in Gmail and Calendar. Recall that soon another related problem will be solved soon - some personal services (Google Reader, Blogger, Youtube ...) will become available in Google Apps accounts.

As you know, Google Apps has no specialized project management solution, and this is very disappointing, as there are many other useful utilities for online workgroups there. However, there are three tools that can be used to solve this problem. And the first of them is Google Sites. You can use Google Sites to manage one large project, or create a site for each small project in it (there are even some templates for project sites). Since Google Sites is, in fact, a wiki, you can easily work with the project documentation there. In addition, Google Sites allows you to embed group calendar (Google Calendar), task list (Google Tasks) and documents from Google Docs. All these elements are very useful for project management, but of course, task collaboration in this solution - is the weakness.

As was promised by Data Liberation Front, Google opens access to the data stored inside its intranet-service Google Sites. It's implemented in a form of Google Sites API. So, from now, users shouldn't worry that they can't backup or import their data in a suitable format. But "data liberation" is not the main reason why Google Sites API was created. It's rather a necessary move to survive. Because Google is developing all these business tools not to make money, but to compete with Microsoft and to draw its attention from the search/advertising market. And if Google Sites doesn't rival its antipode - Sharepoint, it has a chance to be dismissed.