Jot Spot

http://www.jot.com

JotSpot is a WikiWikiClone / WikiFarm that adds (think FeatureCreep):

email
attachments
calendars
WYSIWYG editing.

JotSpot is intended to compete with LotusNotes.

JotSpot has been acquired by Google perhaps because JotSpot has oriented itself to including other applications like spreadsheets, calendars, blogs, email lists under one big tent -- I think it is the one big tent approach plus a great editorial interface that got Google thinking that JotSpot might be the glue (bailing wire :) that could hold (lash) all of the applications that Google has been acquiring over the last several years.

JotSpot has free accounts and also premium additional services (like number of pages, and number of registered users) but as with other acquisitions: JotSpot is temporarily not taking new accounts while it adjusts to how Google does things ... which includes making premium features available at no cost to the user as they did with Blogger a few years back.

If you would like to take JotSpot for a test drive check out http://inetgroup.jot.com and, if you would like to be an administrator to take a look behind under the hood drop me an email. JohnDeBruyn (November 1, 2006)

Starting to get some press:

http://www.infoworld.com/article/05/03/28/13FEblogwiki-rev1_1.html?source=NLC-SMB2005-03-28

And now the latest to be snapped up by Google.

Not a wiki any more?

Google has released GoogleSites now (apparently drawing on JotSpot) - looks like it just isn't a wiki at all any more.

It is singularly the worst Wiki I've ever used. Editing Word documents and FTPing them to a central server is easier. Every single editor interface has more bugs than an antfarm, some of them absolutely critical. It constantly gets confused over its own markup, particularly in WYSIWYG mode. In plain-HTML mode, well, I'll let this excerpt from a bug report I sent in speak for itself:

Create a new page with the WYSIWYG editor. For the sake of this bug report, let's call it UserStories. (You're going to bug-report the UserStories? sweet!)

Enter the following as three separate lines:


        As a: QAE

        I want: JotSpot to not make Baby Jesus cry

        so that: I can do MY job without ME crying.


        Tasks:

        - File a bug report with Google.

        - Pray that it's actually acted upon.

For that matter:


        As a: JotSpot Customer

        I want: JotSpot markup to follow industry-standard Wiki syntax: either C2's syntax or MediaWiki's syntax.

        so that: I don't have to learn YET ANOTHER proprietary, untested, and butt-ugly markup syntax.


        Tasks:

        - Get on with the original bug report.

Highlight the As a:, I want:, and so that: lines in their entirety, so as to be a single block, and select the color green (#009900) from the font color menu.

Save the page.

Edit your preferences; set your editor mode to Markup.

Edit UserStories again. Notice how the page contents will read:


        As a: QAE

        

        I want: ...

        so that: ...

OK, maybe it's just a bug in the page-to-Markup translator. Maybe the REVERSE direction won't have this bug. So, erase the first tag, so that the font color applies to the block as a whole again.

Save the page.

Watch in UTTER HORROR as the green applies only the first line, and the remainder of the block sits in black.

Re-edit the page, and notice that the that you just disposed of is back in the text!!

If JotSpot hadn't been selected by the company to serve as our official wiki, I would never, ever consider using them. WORST. WIKI. EVER.

--SamuelFalvo

CategoryWikiImplementation