The nasty four-letter word that must be banished from the web

In a BusinessWeek article on the Google Sites launch, Dave Girouard, manager of the division that oversees Sites says:

“We are literally adding an edit button to the Web.”

But no mention of the word wiki, the very idea that has powered the rise of that “edit button.” In his writeup of the launch, Om Malik says:

“I bet like me, no one wants to deal with another wiki.”

No one? Really?

Fortunately, The CNET & ZDNet guys take a much more levelheaded approach, and point out Google’s haste to banish “wiki” from the web:

Larry Dignan says:

Frankly, none of this rebranding works all that well. It’s still not clear what Google Sites is about judging from its name. Google is trying to mainstream the use of the wiki but without the name. But Google Sites doesn’t exactly bonk you over the head with meaning either.

Overall, Google Sites is a collaboration app for people that are managing projects or classroom activities. In other words, it’s wiki-ish.

As for the branding–Jotspot to it’s-not-a-wiki to Google Sites–Google didn’t exactly clarify much of anything.

Rafe Needleman says:

Call it what you will (it’s a wiki, ok?)

Dan Farber says:

The term “wiki” has been banished from Googlespeak as the company tries to mainstream its collaborative applications. “There shouldn’t be a distinction between wikis and sites,” said product manager Scott Johnston. He hopes that the “edit button” becomes pervasive as the collaborative Web takes hold.

Johnson’s answer is interesting from a long-term perspective, but I don’t think banishing a term that many people in the mainstream are just beginning to understand, and value, is the clearest approach. Google should look to Apple, which does a much better job of easing major cultural change into the mainstream.