For the last 18 months Google Sites has given businesses a way to quickly build their own websites with no HTML knowledge required, making for an easy way to help coordinate efforts internally and to also build consumer facing sites. But there’s been one fairly major complaint about the service: there was no easy way to export your data if you wanted to take it elsewhere. Today that changes, as Google introduces its new Sites API.
For those that aren’t familiar with it, Sites is the reincarnation of Jotspot, which Google acquired back in 2006 (though the two products look totally different). The product is Google’s easy-to-use website and wiki builder that’s widely used by businesses, though there’s a consumer option available.
The new API is part of Google’s recently launched Data Liberation Front, which consists of a team at Google with the “singular goal is to make it easier for users to move their data in and out of Google products”. In other words, it’s Google’s attempt to ensure that if you’re no longer pleased with one of its services, it should be fairly easy to pick up and go somewhere else without losing any of your data. It also gives businesses a chance to create their own local backups — something that Google says has been among Sites’ most requested features. But there’s plenty you can do with the new API beyond just data export.
Businesses will now be able to update their Sites pages from third party apps (Google offers the example of updating a Sites page when a new lead is added to your CRM). You can also use the API to download your entire Google Sites account to your desktop, which would be helpful if you were in a region with minimal Internet connectivity.
You can get an idea for what the API is capable of by checking out the open source import/export project and Sharepoint Move for Google Apps, both of which use the Sites API.
So this means I’ll be able to use Google’s WYSIWYG editor producing clean HTML pages to import in another CMS?
I too believe it would be so. Google becoming more and more non-tech friendly. Brilliant move guys!
So this means I’ll be able to use Google’s WYSIWYG editor to produce clean HTML pages to import in another CMS?
Google apps is great but “sites” itself leaves a lot to be desired, The API is great but it needs interface work to appeal to the masses.
Google sites is cool in theory… but no one uses it.
We use it, but it’s horrible
We use it for our internal company wiki.
I love the ease of use – do any of you folks know if there is an app for google connect on it though ? – you know the faces, the toolbar etc. like on blogspot ? – that would make it more like Ning then
I’m recommending businesses use geocities.
UUUUUMMMMM Geocities is closing down on 10/26/09. Googlesites it is then.
Data Liberation Front seems like a really great product! I’m always against vendor lock-in, so I’m glad Google is leading the way.
We are using it as an internal company wiki.
I’m moving over our documentation from our DevGuard.com Trac wiki.
Google Sites is quick and convenient solution to build an internal knowledge and it is also more convenient for engineering something than emailing text back and forth.
I like that it supports building a page hierarchy and i don’t have to maintain it manually like in other wikis.
Since I’m basically a command line guy, I love to type the URLs IF they are logical and short. With Sites I can customize it without any serious effort, so we can have
http://sites.co...com/users-guide
http://sites.co....com/tech-guide
Concise, isn’t it? The nicest would be http://sites/tech-guide (by providing company.com in the OS domain search list..)
I use it thru GPRS or 3G and it’s still damn fast.
The only thing I missed from it – until now – was the backup functionality.
I would like to hear REASONS from the unsatisfied users against it. Otherwise you look like just venting your mouths.
@kevin: WHY geocities and not sites?
@mosher: what is terrible about it?
@mager: what made u think nobody uses it? — i’ve just discovered recently because earlier i didn’t understand it’s actually a wiki and not necessarily a public website builder.
and to push the idea further: if u rename ur sites in the google apps control panel to wiki, then u can access ur docs by typing
wiki/tech-guide
Using Google Sites via my own domain and Google Apps … its clunky …
The control panel is an add on on top of sites … so you have two desinations to get things done … one at sites.x.com and the other at google.com/a/x
So its difficult to learn … and annoying to rem how to do something … but hey its free and it works
This is welcome news. We initially used Sites as a private intranet during the research phase of our ’startup’ to quickly organize data we were collecting and collaboratively edit documentation. We loved it so much that we eventually decided to launch our public site with it. Its limited but at the same time very elegant and powerful. I have been running a daily cron job to back it up though, so hopefully I can now keep a copy of it through this API.
Not all Google Sites are completely ugly… I’d like to think ours is tolerable: http:///www.getcatnip.com (slighly NSFW!)