News

JotSpot meshes wikis with Microsoft apps

• By Jason Turcotte
• July 24, 2006

Exhausted of their egghead stigma, the industry’s first wiki app company found a way to transform traditional wikis into fresh page types. And now the new-look wikis are compatible with Microsoft Office.

This week JotSpot announced the release of JotSpot 2.0, a wiki app platform that not only lets users collaborate on text files but enables the exchange of calendars, spreadsheets, file repositories, docs and images. Reps at the Palo Alto, Calif.-based company say version 2.0 reduces the complexity of wiki collaboration and increases the platform’s functionality.

“The new features in the JotSpot wiki are very well implemented and are a huge leap forward in functionality over traditional wikis,” said Eric Matson, director of quality assurance at Zazzle, an Internet customized products company. “We’re looking forward to consolidating our existing, out-dated wiki tools onto one platform.”

With its predefined page types, Version 2.0 lets users create calendars, spreadsheets and other apps with one click. These page types are capable of wrapping text in a cell, copy/paste functions and ‘shift-click’ functions. Administrative features also enable the user to control who can view information. Pages can be built privately, shared (among invited users), or publicly. Orgs can restrict access to their wiki tools, allowing certain users access to editing and updating privileges.

JotSpot wikis include a wee bit of personality, too. Users can simply control the color, look and logos of their pages without having to learn HTML or CSS. A new link chooser provides the option of creating links both internally and externally of the wiki, and to docs within the wiki. Its new-look also includes a wiki app sidebar display resembling Microsoft Outlook.

“Traditional wikis are too nerdy and only offer one type of collaboration. This has been a barrier to the mainstream adoption of wikis,” said Joe Kraus, co-founder and CEO, JotSpot. “…We’ve combined the familiarity and functionality of desktop applications like Office with the collaborative power and flexibility of wikis so users can quickly and easily collaborate on all types of information.”

To date, the JotSpot wiki platform has 30,000 users among 2,000 orgs. Prices start at $10 per month for 10 users and 100 pages, topping $200 per month for unlimited usage and pages. The service is free for up to five users with a maximum of 10 pages. JotSpot 2.0 is available now.