Google’s office strategy just got a whole lot richer with the announced acquisition of the wiki based company Jotspot. A business oriented service that plugs a long list of different applications like calendars and photo sharing into a wiki framework, we called Jotspot “the best business-facing hosted wiki available” when we reviewed its newest iteration this summer. We also reported on rumors that Yahoo! was going to acquire the company in May. See all our previous coverage of Jotspot here.
Other than a wiki, most of Jotspot’s plug and play applications are things that Google already has its own versions of. The acquisition may have been largely motivated by the desire to bring on board an agile team able to quickly ramp up lightweight hosted business applications for collaboration. Google may push Jotspot primarily as a project management application, one of the most important missing pieces of the company’s office platform. In fact, far more than a wiki, I’m going to guess that when Google reopens Jotspot to new users it will be as a wiki based project management service.
The Palo Alto company reports having more than 2000 customers who subscribe to services costing $5 and $200 per month. An intro page and screencast about Jotspot is still online but may not be for much longer. As of today all existing customers are no longer being charged and new account registration is closed while Jotspot is integrated with the rest of Google’s services.
Founders Joe Kraus and Graham Spencer are also founders of early web portal Excite, now an IAC property. Excite was once considered a darling of the early web but was first acquired for less than $10 million.
Jotspot raised one round of funding in 2004 for $5.2 million from Redpoint Ventures and Mayfield Funds. Joe Krause frequently points out that it cost only $100,000 to get Jotspot to market.
Jotspot has often been discussed as one of the most successful and established enterprise 2.0 companies and I imagine the selling price was a good one for the small startup. Details haven’t been disclosed but Jotspot is a strong company, the deal has officially closed and Google said in its last earnings call that YouTube’s all stock acquisition was unusual. Google probably paid a substantial amount of cash for Jotspot.
If Jotspot can be integrated as smoothly as so many other Google web applications have been, it will go a long ways towards strengthening Google for the upcoming web collaboration wars. How much longer until a web conferencing company is acquired?
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If anyone wants to test-drive JotSpot but hasn’t signed up yet, Sam is sharing a login:
http://blog.outer-court.com/fo.....ml#id74049
Wow..this one is a surprise. Congrats Jotspot.
good buy for the googleplex -
I think this is an especially savvy acquisition because it extends their office application with functionally not currently offered in an integrated suite. Personally, I would only consider trying an alternative if it either does something much better, or something I couldn’t do before. While this wiki app is not new or exclusive, it becomes much more compelling as a component in a suite.
Sometimes I’m not exactly sure where Google plans to go with all these acquisitions… its like buying three red Ferrari’s because you can. While I understand that JotSpot is bringing some expertise to the table, I feel that there might be arising conflict of interests with googles current apps. I do love the JotSpot wiki concept though, and I’m really curious to see how it will be absorbed into Google.
How much did this go for this time?
I wonder what impact will it have on other wiki farms (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wiki_farms). If Google offers for free what others charge $$ for it might not be too good.
Or will it have positive impact by making people aware of Wikis in general?
I am running a wiki farm too, a very young one (3 months old) and have been somehow afraid that one of the big players (Google or Yahoo) might enter the market too… Any advice?
Or let us better wait 
After all Blogger did not eliminate Wordpress or others…
best regards - michal frackowiak
Congrats to Jotspot. Well done.
Who’s next in the collaboration/wiki world? Basecamp? Socialtext? Central Desktop?
I can’t believe how many sites are being acquired these days. It reminds me of Microsoft’s strategy of don’t really make much, just buy everyone else. I don’t think it makes for elegant integration between their various services. For example, I like the way Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign have a similar interface and keyboard shortcuts. Will Google or the other conglomerates work on a standardized interface across services?
I like Jot Spot, Our family has a family site they offer for free. We love it and have a got a lot use out of it. I HOPE this makes it all the better.
I think what Google has done here is purchase a group of beta testers to go through a dry run of the integration of Google’s apps. Good move. Its like having an expert consulting firm come in and become project managers for the Google Apps full integration, which is surely on the way.
Given that JotSpot only had a handful of users (2000 according to the post) they were likely to run into scalability issues- Google can easily resolve that. I agree however that finding a way to create a shared interface for all of the Google apps is critical. You’re not a business-friendly application, online or otherwise, until you provide multi-user support and adminstrative controls within the application. Jotspot has some of this.
Of course, still no word on revenue model…
MartinE: They had 2000 PAYING users, I believe. Several thousands more free/trial customers, I’m sure.
Yes, They have more users for sure. 2000 paying users is not bad after all.
I believe Google acquired it for the employers. Good talent is hard to find. If they can get an application with talented employees that makes it even great. Sounds a good deal for both to me.
“Hey, you got your Writely in my Wiki!”
“Hey, you got your Wiki in my Writely!”
Joe Kraus is great. This is an early still pre-revenue company with great ideas that Google can monetize. Super sell timing.
Congratultations!! We used JotSpot in 2005 for a conference at MIT. They didnt offer any student discounts to a student club like ours but we found the site quite useful. I recently went back to the site two months back and was amazed to find all the functionality that they have added.
None of it is perfect but their vision and direction is great. I was surprised by the richness of the new release and the class of ‘07 is using JotSpot again. Though JotSpot/Google needs to work on giving student clubs/organizations some discount.
Another tidbit, they were juggling offers way back in Feb. 2006. Looks like they might have held out for a better price and better company ;).
Perfect purchase for the Google “Office” empire.
Google is always in need of more user-generated content, widely viewed, to sell ads next to.
Jot started out as a wiki-centric app dev platform (not a great one, imho — compsci too-complex design), but has of late been swinging more towards being a vendor of office-lite and consumer web apps. The latter — Jot plans to launch 30+ new apps in 2007 — is likely the main reason for the deal. Plus the fact that Joe and goog mgmt are all Stanford alums, and Joe started in search.
I think they will integrate JotSpot somehow in theri new Groups Beta which is quite sweet lately
RE: 2000 members confusion
Clearly google didn’t necessarily buy the site for its user base… but do keep in mind that the 2000 paying members are very much the minority. I have been told by people in consumer internet that on average only 1% of your user base will typically upgrade to a paying membership. Hope this puts it into perspective, although it goes to show again that google didn’t buy 200,000+ users here… it bought “best in business technology” (as described above by Marshall et al). Where Google has proven itself time and time again is the ability to take smart web applications and leverage high usage to drive sales on unobtrusive advertisements.
Congrats to JotSpot… I agree with Marshall, above, that Google likely paid a substantial amount of cash, from JotSpot’s perspective. But the price tag was likely quite unsubstantial when you consider the size of Google’s cash reserves.
RM
Jotspot is awesome, they are more than just a wiki company, we have been using it on a small scale to manage the project. And what is really cool from this acquisition is all paying jots account will become free. So pretty soon, you might see them offering premium accounts for free.
Quote from their email to customers.
“Will paying customers still be charged?
We will no longer be billing customers for the use of the service. Although you will still have use of the product at your current pricing plan, we won’t charge you anymore when your current billing cycle expires.”
I don’t think they’ve been bought for their users… I don’t think Google bought for their applications or their infrastructure either. I think Google bought JotSpot for the foundations that they’ve laid in bringing application DIY to the masses.
Watch this space - JotSpot is underpinned by a layer of simple, modular, application “pieces”, which people combine to create their web apps - this concept is what Google will build on.
http://jonathanlisterbtcom.wor.....-business/
Very good new and congratulation. However, the transition does not seem to be as smooth as planned and promised (uninterrupted service). I have a paying JotSpot wiki and it is impossible to access it today. The login page does not show up and a 502 Proxy Error page is displayed instead. Hope they will fix it ASAP because I rely on their excellent wiki for my business everyday.
they probably bought them to get rid of them.
Curious move.
I would not be so quick to call Jotspot one of the most successful web 2.0 enterprise companies. It is unlikely they were anywhere near profitability which is probably why they sold out. Nothing wrong with selling, of course, but let us not be so quick to call their core business a success. 2000 paying customers does not coe anywhere near supporting a staff of over 25 fair to well paid people. Nonetheless, congrats to them.
This must really raise the market value of companies like Zoho, Socialtext, and 37signals - especially the later. I wonder who comes calling for them next.
This one smells like an acquire-the-engineers-at-a-reasonable-price move - Google has been desperately seeking talent, so it figures. The only part of JotSpot that Google already doesn’t have is the Wiki, which is not that hard to do (there are 50+ Wikis out there). Jot Calender, Tracker (spreadsheet) etc were subpar.
JotSpot simply didn’t generate enough critical mass, and the founders and the VCs probably calculated that it is better to seek a white knight than to continue.
This is not to say that Google won’t do something good with the team.
I wonder what this means for Wiki apps that have just recently launched like MindTouch http://www.mindtouch.com as well as ones that are currently pre-launch like BrainKeeper (www.brainkeeper.com)
This is more important than the youTube deal, youTube is their old biz model this is Google’s emerging business model> Look out M$ stuck in your innovators dilemma, the Google freight train is picking up real speed, still think you can hold off with Office 2.0?
Sounds like a good fit for JotSpot and Google. I wonder though if some enterprises will be “spooked” at the thought of putting their online corporate content on Google’s site given its privacy policy.
I noticed SocialText and eTouch Systems have put out migration offers for JotSpot enterprise users.
first of all congrats — joe is a smart guy, and a really nice person.
and Jot is a pretty cool product, with decent traction (tho not massively so). while it’s likely Jot could have raised another round of financing (or Joe could have even done it himself perhaps), they probably weren’t hitting numbers that made sense for them to double down and continue alone. alternatively, getting acquired by someone like GYM or others gives them much greater distribution at much lower customer acquisition cost. also, probably modest enough success and userbase to get acquired at a reasonable number that made Redpoint / Mayfield feel like they were getting at least a “double” of out of it.
my guess is the post-money valuation on the $5M raise from Oct04 was around ~$20M, so very likely a deal could get done at anywhere between $25-75M. also possibly some incentives / milestones that could have sweetened the deal if they do a good job. if i was a wagering man, i’d say the number was around $35M, give or take 5-10. but that’s completely out of my ass and not based on any metrics.
anyone else have more informed / educated guesses?
(come on, somebody from Yahoo can probably post a speculative number that’s at least somewhat based on 2nd-hand rumor
- dave mcclure
http://500hats.typepad.com/
This works out pretty well
I am currently trialling a MediaWiki serve here at my workplace
It is great for sharing notes and fixed objects (images etc)
most are very happy with its ability
but doesnt quite offer a full management experience or offer thorough integration with services such as a calender, sheduling tools, gantt charts etc
to
# Justin Kistner
October 31st, 2006 at 9:50 am
Will Google or the other conglomerates work on a standardized interface across services?
Hell yes they will
For example if you ever used Picasa & Writely.com in the past they were did not resemble any layout even remotely like google products
http://www.writely.com has become docs.google.com and the interface was overhalled and merged with google Spreadsheets a true google product.
It like looking at the Google home page.
Picasa wow latest version the subtle blue outlines and built in frontends to Gmail its like noone else ever owned/made Picasa.
Those JotSpot customers must be happy - great price drop, especially for the $200/mo. customers.
Price drop is nice indeed but I guess one problem I have is that the service is now completely free, and I would rather pay something for it since I use it for business. If the service is free, Google is also free to can it anytime they want, and they have basically no obligation to provide a great service (even though they actually will, most likely, provide an even better service than JotSpot could on its own). Free service means we should be happy to be using the service and we cannot really complain. I am not saying that this is Google’s stance, as many of their other services work very well, but it is still a concern for business usage. Oh well, even though I really like the product, JotSpot’s customer service was actually questionable (although I understand it can be really hard to do well in a small startup struggling to become profitable… catch 22), so I guess it cannot get really worse in terms of responsiveness. Lastly, as somebody mentions, I am somewhat worried about privacy issues, with all the information, even confidential one, slowly getting under the “no evil” wing of (too?) mighty Google. Still thinking about that one, and will evaluate other alternatives just in case. Not freaking out… just pondering.
Great!!!
But I am confused where the wikis are heading for, hosted v/s enterprise. If bigger players are more inclined towards the hosted online solutions, then
what will happen to the wikis which are targeting the enterprise market? What is going to be business model for wikis in the future?
I am still wondering what the CMS big player are doing in wiki space. Have they missed the boat or are they thinking that it is not good revenue model?
Any ideas..
JotSpot offers a great package that will deliver value by integrating Google’s many disparate applications and services into a highly customizable development platform.
We use a JotSpot wiki along with Google Search, Google AdSense, Google Video, YouTube, and other Google services to power http://www.strmz.com — a social video site and content discovery service.
James
Mandalan Media
If anyone no longer uses their jotspot account would you please email me and allow me the opportunity to check it out?! I just found out about jotspot and I’m not sure when they’ll start accepting to registrations
Thanks!
Google is at it again.
Its like Google actually wants to affect every aspect of people’s live. Well this is cool.
Does anybody know when Google plan to buy Microsoft ?
———-
http://bellars@cowblock.net
http://www.nigeriajug.com
I believe Google plan on buying Microsoft as a Christmas present for Apple this year to get in good with them after the iPhone has taken over the world. Put it in your diaries.