Prediction: Google Sites - Ning Killer? | Hacker News Reader

Prediction: Google Sites - Ning Killer?

1 pointabl2 comments

Ok, so its a little early, but I am very excited about the potential of Google Sites. As I was researching various wiki solutions for a corporate project collab site, I ended up settling on Google sites as a hosted wikifarm solution. The presentation is in google's repertoire - clean, lacking features, but very promising. :)

After creating a few sample pages and looking for more information, I found the Google Sites blog:

http://googlesitesblog.blogspot.com/

Even though Google Sites has been out for a few months now, based on the very fresh blog entries and a spurt of activity, I have a feeling google is ramping this app up.

If you examine the list features, specifically the project tracking templates, it almost seems like they are going after Basecamp as well.

Now, consider the power of embedding google gadgets, and my prediction may not be very far off!

I just don't understand why google doesn't add massive features to its apps products, given that they have a whole army of developers...

The only area Google has really killed in is search, PPC and maybe a couple of other things. Everything else ranges from pretty good to horrible (but not killer.) Personally, I use Gmail more than any other Google service but I bet Gmail doesn't have the same dominance as their search does.

My opinion is certainly debatable, but the point is that Google does not automatically dominate every area they get into and some of their services are terrible.

Also, I am pretty sure Microsoft has tried the "whole army" thing with search and look at where that has got them.

I agree - it seems like their products have so much potential but they are not improving upon them, not taking advantage of the whole "release often" paradigm, which in my opinion is easier to do with SaaS. Maybe easier said than done though....

With Google Sites for example, users are clamoring for features, in fact there seems to be a consensus on which lacking features are most important, yet no word or ETA's from Google.. I got a response back regarding the premium edition of Google Sites, seems like the only premium feature available now is that each user gets extra 500MB disk space.. For $50 / user, thats hardly "premium" in my opinion, unless I hear otherwise.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com