With the latest offering from Google going live (Google Apps for Your Domain), I’ve realized exactly how fast it is to get a business online. I’ve been using GAfYD for quite a while for the email and calendaring here at mattberther.com, but everything was already registered and so on.

My wife has recently decided to start a business, and after going back and forth on some names, we finally decided on one. As with any new business, finances are always a concern, so we were looking for ways that we could do this on the cheap. GAfYD came to mind, especially since I read about the applications going live for enterprise organizations recently.

I checked the website, and they still had a free version available, which offered everything we needed (simple web page, email and calendaring). The website also detailed a partnership with godaddy.com for domain registration. How convenient, I thought… as I typed in the business name to see if it was available. To my shock it was and within 15 minutes, I had completed the following steps to get Lindsay’s new business online:

• Registered and paid for a one year domain name
• Set up a basic introductory web page
• Set up the email addresses for the business (info@ and lindsay@)
• Set up Apple’s Mail.app for my wife to read the emails
• Set up iCal for the calendar integration (if only this was bidirectional)

Absolutely amazing… creating an internet presence for this business took less time than agonizing over whether or not we want to be an LLC or an S-Corp.

I would not have expected it to be this easy, but this is just another thing that Google has absolutely nailed. With this type of service, there is no reason why any business shouldnt have an online presence.

I guess this might be part of Google’s plan for world domination. ;)