Picasa Web Albums integration, site feeds, and page templates in Google Sites

Many people use Google Sites as a way to keep friends and family updated on what's going on in their lives. Great photos add color and personality, which is why we've made it easier to insert your Picasa Web Albums photos into a site. The 'Insert' menu now includes an option to insert a photo.

You can also upload a photo directly to Picasa Web Albums from within Google Sites using the 'Upload Photo' tab in the insert dialog.

Note that Picasa Web Albums is not available in Google Apps, so this option will not appear for Google Apps users.

We've also made it easier for your friends and family to follow updates on your site. You can now access any announcement page as a feed by adding posts.xml to the end of that announcement page URL. For example, this is the feed URL for our sample ski club site:

• http://sites.google.com/a/googleuniversity.org/ski-club/Home/Ski-Club-Announcements/posts.xml

Feeds are also available for site comments (add "comments.xml") and site activity (add "activity.xml"). Announcement and comment feeds follow the permission of the site and require authentication for private sites. This means online feed readers which don't support authenticated feeds won't be able to subscribe to private site feeds or site activity.

Lastly, we also added the ability to create custom page templates for a site. Creating a page template lets you define default content as well as settings, like layout, that other collaborators can use when they create a new page. For example, if you are working on an intranet site, you can create a department page template and use that template for each department page. This saves time and adds consistency to your site.

Posted by: Scott Johnston, Senior Product Manager, Google Sites