Google Sites - My "Web Stop"

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My name is Ron Hall.
I live at the Funny Farm.

Jeff Jarvis refers to Google as a "platform" - a base for people to operate from on the web. Obviuously I agree. Once I got the taste/thrill of seeing my SketchUp models up on the 3D Warehouse and the 3D Buildings layer, I was eager to post more content. Because my Google tool of choice at that time was Google Earth - I began investigating how to get my material to show up in their default database (there are many ways/opportunities). The one that interested me most was the "Google Earth Gallery" (Tip - Hit the "Add Content" button in the "My Places" panel the next time you are running Google Earth).

The Gallery is a place to find user generated content (sometimes very sophisticated) made for viewing in Google Earth. It is sometimes referred to as "kml" - because of the file format (Keyhole Markup Language - the company that greated Google Earth). Google provides the template process for submitting kml content to the Gallery, one just needs server space for Google to fetch the content from. I wasn't sure what to do, then I stumbled into "Google Sites".

Tip - I have "stumbled into" many Google tools from Google's Search Window - just look at upper left (blue links) and start having fun.

Google Sites (Preceeded by Google's "Pagecreator") allowed me to set up a website (actually now several), personalize/customize it (via their template system or html), and use it as a place to upload files for internet usage. I can track users with Google Analytics (more later) and use Google's Adsense to see if I could derive some web revenue from my online time.

All this for free. I was in the big time.

Actually, not really - I had to find a way for Google to "find" my Google Earth content -stay tuned for a big tip down the road.

In the meantime, I set about creating a cozy little nest for my content on the web. Once again, I just concentrated on the content - Google did all the heavy lifting.

Need to start my week. Make it a good day.

Forgot to mention - saw "Julie and Julia" yesterday (see earlier post).