11.1 The official Google blog has just announced that Google Sites is now open to everyone. This is what they say:

we’ve made it easy for anyone to set up a website to share all types of information — team projects, company intranets, community groups, classrooms, clubs, family updates, you name it — in one place, for a few people, a group or the world. You can securely host your own website at http://sites.google.com/[your-website] and add as many pages as you like for free.

Getting started with Google Sites is easy. You can create different types of pages from scratch with the click of a button, and you can embed documents, calendars, photos, videos and gadgets directly into those pages. Similar to Google Docs, built-in editing tools allow for popular text and formatting changes to be made in a straightforward, WYSIWYG manner. Once your site is up and running, inviting people to edit or view your content is as simple as entering in their email address (of course, you can change access levels at any time). And you (or anyone who has editing privileges) can add or edit information whenever you’d like.

There’s also a quick video that demonstrates how to create a simple site.

It’s a potentially interesting tool for small business, start-ups and entrepreneurs. You can quickly and easily create a site and share it with one or more others making it a great way of sharing information and ideas amongst a team. Of course you could also use it to host a small business website, treating it as a free content management system.

Being a bit of a geek I decided to have a play with it too, so here’s my site Business Ideas.

Just make sure you read the terms of service before you put any proprietary/valuable/confidential information on there in particular you should be aware of these clauses:

11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive licence to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. This licence is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the Services and may be revoked for certain Services as defined in the Additional Terms of those Services.

11.2 You agree that this licence includes a right for Google to make such Content available to other companies, organizations or individuals with whom Google has relationships for the provision of syndicated services, and to use such Content in connection with the provision of those services.

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