MyProfiles Lesson 1 - Introduction

Welcome.

INTRODUCTION 

This is lesson one.  Lesson one is an introduction to the project and the decision process for the platform the project will reside upon.

This is an AI Code Projects project.  The goal is to use Google Workspace tools to help bootstrap a website to earn income. 

This project is the My Profiles project.  My Profiles is web app that allow users to add multiple online profile information in one place, use a detail page to get traffic to multiple online locations.

It's free.  You can quickly add your online locations to get traffic to your multiple locations online.  People can go to one place to find your online activities including your money links.

It took some research to finally decide on the platform for the project.  Cost is a major factor.  Initially WordPress seemed like a good choice.  The maintenance portion of the project made that platform a turn off.  I do not want to have to do updates all the time and worry about code breaking due to some update of some module.  If you do things that stay within the WordPress world then it works but it really worked when you get the managed version which costs money.  Self-management will drain your time.  That is money.

Costs, security, speed and maintenance, in that order, are the major factors in making the decisions.  Google Workspace offer plenty of tools with a generous free tier that can be integrated and with some non-complex coding the integration and integration form other services can make the tools more custom and functional for your needs. 

I asked Microsoft's CoPilot to help me narrow down my best approach in using Google Workspace to develop a website that will allow users to add profiles and search for profiles.  Note: the more specific you are with any of the AI tools he better the response.   After a few brainstorming chats I had the direction of the platform and approach to accomplish the goals for this project.

To meet my goals for costs, etc. I will use Google Firebase Functions as a backend API.  This will allow for frontend flexibility, and it was the most cost-effective way to meet my goals.  There are other considerations such as your skill set and the tools you have at your disposal to build your project.  The AI tools are a major game changer in increasing your productivity levels and a boost to the skills level you possess.

For the project I will have a real live production site at https://www.savemyprofiles.com and a test of the project at https://myprofiles.aicodeprojects.com.  

The live production site is the real McCoy and actually uses a Google Firebase frontend web app as well as the Google Firebase Functions as a backend API.  The code generations for the front end and back end aren't a part of the lessons.  The site is free to use and may become open sourced.  I haven't made the final decision on that. 

The test site exists for the lessons.  The lessons are to show how you can add functionality to Google Sites that works with dynamic content instead of static only content.  Static only content pages are webpages that simply display content such as images, text videos.  There is no programming for some conditions in order to display it.  Dynamic content is content that changes based on some condition and requires programming to output the content.  

With dynamic content capabilities you can do many things such as add a paywall or create a membership site where users sign up, sign in to access content.  You could make it a free or paid or both membership site.  This makes Google Sites go beyond the standard static content features.  I'm showing these lessons for entrepreneurs who have to bootstrap a dynamic content site before they have the funds to pay for the resources.  

I hope what is learnt jumpstarts sites, but the sites created in the lessons are not intended to scale to tens of thousands of users or more.  You have to spend for that and if you bootstrap correctly, you can get it achieved with little out of pocket money.  That is the goal of the lessons.

These are exciting times since non-programmers that have strong logic skills can actually code like a programmer using AI tools in the correct sequence.  This is covered in the lessons.  You do not have to spend bundles on IT help to get functionality you want with many of the latest AI tools.  Strong logic skills should suffice.

Breaking your project down into parts that interconnect correctly allow you to apply all kinds of resources to create the functioning of those smaller parts.  We will have a Google Sites front end, use App Scripts to add the backend functionality or in our case since we are using an API for our backend, we'll use App Scripts to call the API and display the call's results.  The code will also manipulate the frontend for things such are sorting the data or changing the display layout of the date. Other pages will be static content so that is like using a word processor, no coding involved, the Sites tools handle the under the hood work.

RECAP 

We will create a site that allow users to add a profile via registering for an account and then signing in to modify the account.  The site will allow site visitors to search the profiles, rate and share the profiles.  Those that sign up for an account will be able to add their profile information that the search engine will use.  The lesson will go into detail of the different functions.

The platform we'll use to achieve the goals of cost efficiency, security, speed and maintenance ease will be Google Sites for our frontend user interactions, Google Firebase Functions for our backend API and Google App Scripts to tie the frontend and backend together to achieve our work.

This is an introduction to the project.  The next lesson will dive more into the app functionality more.  The lesson following that will dive into the tools and platform more before finally getting to code work.

BTW:  Since we are trying to get people to DIY with their own projects from these lessons it will be text and not video based.