Wiki++ in 2009: Moving Toward Suites With Wiki at the Core
ReadWriteWeb’s picks for the Top 10 Enterprise Web Products of 2008 include both Atlassian Confluence and MindTouch Deki in a tie for best wiki. In the article, Bernard Lunn describes the wiki market as wiki++:
We added “++” to “wiki” because the leading vendors are rapidly incorporating micro-blogging, social networking, forums, and other collaboration tools. Integration is key, so we see this market moving towards suites, but with wiki at the core.
Moving towards suites…with wiki at the core. We’re already seeing this trend with the new Widget Connector in Confluence and the Widgets and Feeds capability in MindTouch Deki, and it will continue to grow in importance in 2009. Inside organizations, people are already using wikis at a growing place, so a tool that has the wiki at its core, but also lets people blog, share documents, embed YouTube video, share presentation slides, and embed Flickr photos becomes even more useful.
This isn’t the oft-promised “portal” of the ’90s – it’s something different, and better, because people have a much easier time with a tool that’s centered on one major capability, but can do other things as needed. Think of email: you can send a simple message to one person, but you can also attach a file, send to multiple people, etc. That flexibilityis why email has become so popular, and its why wikis are poised to keep growing dramatically as well.
Andrew Lampitt says:
Dec 17th, 2008
Stewart, yes, at zAgile (www.zagile.com) we are observing the same thing, ie, the wiki seems to become a center point for the enterprise. Of course that plays well with the zAgile vision, which is to integrate people, processes, tools, and knowledge. Your readers may learn more about semantic Confluence here: http://www.zagile.com/mostPopularPosts/confluence-is-n.html
Bill Arconati says:
Dec 17th, 2008
A tie? I didn’t read that part of the article:)
Chris Yeh says:
Dec 18th, 2008
I like to describe the wiki as the glue for the organization. It’s the context, the environment, the foundation for collaboration. And it should allow you to glue in additional functionality.
Stewart Mader says:
Dec 18th, 2008
@Chris – Glue is an excellent analogy.
Chris Yeh says:
Dec 18th, 2008
Glad you like the analogy! When are you dropping by the Bay Area? We should meet up.
Stewart Mader says:
Dec 18th, 2008
@Chris – I live in San Francisco – let me know when you’d like to meet. I’d love to get together!
Matt Wiseley says:
Dec 19th, 2008
In addition to being the glue within an organization, I believe wikis can and will eventually replace the blog format as the de facto web publishing platform. Products like WordPress and Expression Engine have built full-scale web publishing solutions around a blog core, while products like EditMe have put a wiki at the base of a web publishing solution. Blogging becomes an add-on. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
Matt