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July 17, 2007

The Wiki Toolbox: 30+ Wiki Tools and Resources


(* Source: Livia Lacolare *)

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Wikis, sites that can be collaboratively edited, are among the most popular tools for groups working together online. We’ve rounded up 30 of the best sites and resources - most of them free or low priced.

Hosted Wikis

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PBwiki - create your personal wiki in less than 30 seconds with this easy online service. Special solutions for educational, business and personal use.

OttoWiki - build up your personal wiki to track projects or collaborate on documents online.

WikiSpaces - create simple web pages that groups, friends, and families can edit together.

WetPaint - build up public and private wikis and join one of the largest wiki communities.

ServerSideWiki - create a web-hosted wiki specifically designed for extremely fast load times.

StikiPad - a hosted wiki solution that gives you an easy way to organize your information and share it with others.

Netcipia - create free private wikis and blogs and invite your coworkers, familiy and friends.

Ziwiki - build up a free wiki site and collaborate with a large community of users.

Near-Time - create and customize collaborative wikis for your business, customers and friends.

LittleWiki - set up free public and private wiki pages that anyone can edit.

TiddlySpot - get your wiki with no installation required and make it private or public.

ProjectForum - create hosted wikis to share, discuss and review ideas collaboratively (self hosted version available too)

Socialtext - build up a wiki in a few seconds. Different plans available for enterprises and smaller groups.

WikiBios - create a wiki page and edit your own biography. You will become part of a large social network.

Wiki - create free wikispaces of up to 5 members each with 25MB storage.

Wikidot - free and professional wiki publishing, collaboration and communication solutions.

Zoho Wiki - create free hosted group wikis and edit them collaboratively.

Wik.is - create public or private wikis and easily integrate them with your existing website.

JotSpot - popular wiki creation service that is momentarily suspended after having been acquired by Google.

Wikia - a community of users that create, share and discover topics they are passionate about through wikis.

EditMe - wiki hosting service that helps non-technical users to quickly and easily build editable web sites.

Versionate - create collaborative spaces where you can share information and review it with other people.

Self-Hosted/Open Source Wikis

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ProjectForum - software to create wikis to share, discuss and review ideas collaboratively (hosted version available too).

Kwiki - wiki software with over 200 plugins that let you customize the look of your wiki.

XWiki - open source wiki released under the LGPL license

Twiki - enterprise collaboration platform and knowledge management system based on wikis.

OpenWiki - software that lets you create workspaces that can be collaboratively edited by anyone or by selected users.

MediaWiki - free software wiki package originally written for Wikipedia. It’s available for everyone to use.

Confluence - enterprise wiki software that makes it easy for your team to collaborate and share knowledge.

Wiki Search / Browsing Tools

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Gollum - a fast and user friendly tool that lets you browse through Wikipedia.

Qwika - search articles in Wikipedia with this tool that bridges the language gaps.

Wikiseek - another interesting service that lets you search items within Wikipedia.

WikiWix - search engine specialized in searching content within Wikipedia.

 

Posted by brian tiong at 11:14 AM | | Comments (0)

June 06, 2007

Wikipedia: Encyclopedia or Kama Sutra?

(* Source: Adam Tornes *)

 

Wikipedia can be a great source of information on a range of topics. The user generated universe is infinite and the people that contribute and seek information within this exchange have created one of the most vibrant information communities I have seen in my lifetime. But, I wonder, “What specifically do people tend to use Wikipedia for?”

As you would expect many of the top subjects relate to current events and cultural phenomena. For the month of April some of the top subjects included “Don Imus”, “Virginia Tech massacre”, “global warming”, “Naruto” (a Japanese comic and anime TV series) and “Sanjaya Malakar” of American Idol fame.

In addition to these predictable terms, there was a substantial volume of sexual terms. Apparently Bobby’s parents forgot to have the Birds & Bees talk with their son…as did the parents of Billy, Johnny, Julie, Tommy and Susie. Wikipedia is essentially an encyclopedia, so one would assume these searches are for research and learning purposes – a virtual Kama Sutra of sorts.

We categorized the top 100 Wikipedia terms for April into six general categories to figure out what the major search themes are on Wikipedia. As you would expect the greatest number of searches (28%) are within the research category. This includes terms like “Columbine High School massacre” and “American Civil War.”

The two surprising categories are Anime and Sex:

Anime (26%)
There is a tremendous amount of interest in learning about Pokemon and Naruto. Perhaps these are parents who want to know what their kids are going crazy over. My Mom didn’t know what “He-Man” was until I was a grown man reflecting on how silly Castle Grayskull was. My mom could have used Wikipedia in the 80’s.

Sex (16%)
What’s interesting about the top sex related terms on Wikipedia is that they do not appear to have gratuitous intent. The top terms include very straightforward inquiries on human reproductive ‘parts’ and basic concepts of what sex is and how it is performed. It appears many people are learning about what sex is and how to have it by referencing Wikipedia.

 

Posted by brian tiong at 11:01 AM | | Comments (0)

April 13, 2007

The World Of Wikis

(* Source: David Lenehan via three billion *) 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WetPaint, a popular hosted Wiki solution, announced this week that they are to provide person-to-person and private messaging between users of their Wiki network. This means that Wetpaint Wiki users can now send single or multi-person private messages, to connect and collaborate with others about their interests. On reading this news, it got me thinking about Wikis - or more to the point, who is using them and for what purpose. Firstly, I'll briefly describe wikis and then we'll explore the range of wiki products in the market right now.

More here 

Posted by brian tiong at 12:28 PM | | Comments (0)