Google Wiki Prepares To Launch
Michael Arrington
35 comments »
Google may finally be preparing to re-launch wiki service Jotspot, nearly a year after it acquired the company. Jotspot has not allowed new customer registrations since the acquisition was announced, although existing customers retained access to their accounts.
Google Operating System noted that the Jotspot discussion board and help desk have moved over to Google. More telling, Google Blogoscoped discovered that “jotspot” is now a Google Apps service code name. Attempts to log in to the service are shown a page with a (somewhat fuzzy) Google Wiki logo.
Google previously announced that Jotspot would be integrated into Google Apps and part of the suite of online office applications Google is developing or acquiring.
We now have two fairly high profile Google product launches to anticipate in the near future. Google announced in April that an online presentation application would be launching soon as well.
So, do we have the nofollow on or off here?
Jotspot was (I assume still is) a good, user-friendly wiki, and if it comes back now, it took Google an entire year. I hope that means they rethought everything and integrated JotSpot well into a number of offerings:
It could provide for much better document management than the current Docs & Spreadsheets UI.
It overlaps with Page Creator, also with the simplified version found in Google Groups - in fact Groups which is no longer just email lists but a rudimentary collaboration platform and JotSpot could very well be merged / integrated.
Finally JotSpot tried to provide primitive applications (spreadsheet, calendar..etc) all if which have a better Google counterpart, so one would hope they will be replaced, too.
The image is fuzzy because it’s being resized by width and height img tag attributes.
Jotspot was (I assume still is) a good, user-friendly wiki, and if it comes back now, it took Google an entire year. I hope that means they rethought everything and integrated JotSpot well into a number of offerings:
It could provide for much better document management than the current Docs & Spreadsheets UI.
It overlaps with Page Creator, also with the simplified version found in Google Groups - in fact Groups which is no longer just email lists but a rudimentary collaboration platform and JotSpot could very well be merged / integrated.
Finally JotSpot tried to provide primitive applications (spreadsheet, calendar..etc) all if which have a better Google counterpart, so one would hope they will be replaced, too.
I love wikis. For a while my site was built on a wiki, but, isn’t wikis a little obsolete as a publishing platform? Maybe this is a new version of Jotspot with better features.
Is (was?) Jotspot like a commercial version of MediaWiki? I can’t seem to find any information about it, other than it was a Wiki platform.
No, JotSpot has no connection with MediaWiki, other than them both being wikis. It’s a completely different piece of software.
Google is focusing on number of quality sites. They have aquired from feedburner to orkut . You can’t register at jatspot, as all data is moving to Google servers.
It doesn’t give me a service login page (perhaps they took it down). Anyone have a screenshot?
Will google go after wikipedia…?
#10 and also Trackback #2 above: This has nothing to do with Wikipedia.
JotSpot is a wiki provider, allowing customers to create their own private / shared wikis. It’s a collabration tool, can be used by individuals, groups, small or large businesses.
Wikipedia on the other hand is all about user contributed content. The wiki is just a framework that allows millions of contributors to create and share their knowledge.
Jotspot is far more comprehensive than just wikis. It’s a fully fledged groupware suite with a number of add-on apps:
# Email Lists
# Personal To-Do Lists
# Jotspot Spreadsheets
# Project Manager
# Bug Reporter
# Knowledge Base
# Group Directory
# File Cabinet
# Blog
# Forum
# Group Calendar
# Photo Gallery
I got my account right before Google snapped them up. I’ll be interested to see what interface changes occur after launch.
About time!
Google is evil.
I think the Google Wiki logo is fuzzy because it is fake. When I switch out outer-court.com for another domain name, I see the logo for that domain name, not the Google Wiki logo. It “appears” they uploaded the Google Wiki logo themselves - which if true - is kinda sneaky.
As long as it’s free, I will give it a shot to try it out. Should be interesting to see how this integrates with the rest of the google apps such as calendar and gmail.
I hope they extend this functionality into Google Code. The Wiki feature in Google Code kind of sucks.
Cool stuff
Google wiki logo on https://www.google.com/a/outer-court.com/Login?service=jotspot
is a fake, Its Website’s logo not Google’s Wiki Logo. For example try this.
https://www.google.com/a/orizin.net/Login?service=jotspot
Credits: palamc (Digg)
I doubt we’ll see google competing with Wikipedia any time soon. Answers came and went, and I assume JotSpot will continue to be the personal wiki it was. However, we may see some collaborative things emerge…
Finally! I beta tested Jotspot while starting a Charter School, and it had great potential, but just slightly missed the mark. Google Groups, likwise, has been helpful for the school, but again it isn’t quite enough. We use Google Apps at the school, but it doesn’t share very well outside the domain. Please please please, Google, make the Wiki the unifying factor of all these entities. It could be a REALLY VALUABLE TOOL for groups collaborating on all sorts of endeavors.
I am excited about the news.
I wonder how they are going to match Zoho Wiki and waiting to see how JotSpot users are going to react after the release.
Any news on when the long-anticipated Google Wiki will be launched?