Jump into the Cloud – Can a Small Business Rely on the Google Cloud?
As a new chapter in my life unfolds, I have decided to head back into consulting. This leaves many options open to me for laptops, operating systems, applications, email accounts, etc. The only decisions are the ones that are right for my clients and to make my job more efficient.
After Google I/O 2011, I have been reading many articles about the Google Cloud and the upcoming release of the Chromebooks. This got me wondering, Can a small business really move everything into the cloud, predominantly Google’s version of the cloud?
Since, I don’t have many limits required of me for work, I have decided to give it a shot – Google Cloud for 30 days for anything that involves my company, infoGeniuz (www.infoGeniuz.com). Can it be done? We will see. I will update my use, experiences, problems, successes, etc in 4+ articles to be written weekly on Tech-Seeker (http://www.tech-seeker.com).
A little about me, my name is Lance Brown and I been around the marketing industry for over 15 years with 5+ years in strategic Online Marketing. I have my Masters of Science in Internet Marketing and am passionate about online/web/internet analytics and reporting. I am dedicated to analytics to drive Business, Marketing and Financial decisions in order to use creative strategies to acquire new visitors, leads and sales for small business owners.
I use Google Analytics & Adwords everyday, as my primarily source of income and knowledge for web analytics. So, these online tools from Google are a no brainer for me. Additionally I have used Google Apps before to control my email accounts for various domains. I have used Google Docs but only to share documents between clients. So, my interaction thus far is limited.
Time to cut the app cord and “jump into the cloud”.
Part 1 – Setup of Google Apps
Google Apps Setup – I signed up for Google Apps (http://www.google.com/apps/) for my domain, infoGeniuz.com. The free version was enough for me to get started. I then verified the domain name and created my email addresses.
iGoogle – I customized the Google homepage for quicker access to all my new tools and features.
Google Chrome – I already use this 100% of the time on my MacBook Pro.
So far so good. No real troubles yet. Just understanding what is and isn’t possible. This week will be mostly setup and understanding what is available. My next steps are Google Voice and Google App Market to explore my app options.
Till next week… I will be trying to float in the clouds.
By: Lance Brown
