CIO Enterprise Newsletter
 
NEWSLETTERS
 

CIO.com updates, insights and advice on technology, management and your career.

 CIO BlackBerry News and Tips
 CIO Research and Analysis
 CIO Microsoft
 CIO Insider
 
 
 
LEADERSHIP
 
CIO Executive Programs
The Leader in Face-to-Face Education for Senior Executives

Offering regional and national programs, CIO (and CSO) events bring together some of the most respected names and thought leaders in information technology and security. Presented by CIOs and other senior level executives, these invitation-only programs offer timely topics and strong networking. Learn More »

 
CIO Executive Council
A Peer-Advisory Service and Professional Association for CIOs

Public Council Teleconference: Application Rationalization — Hidden Costs and Smart Decisions

November 17 at 11:00 am US/Eastern (GMT-5)

Join Honorio Padrón, of The Hackett Group, who will share the drivers for companies to tackle application rationalization and the results of research that define the hidden cost of complexity. Additionally, we will discuss key decision milestones—to start or not, holding the course steady and fulfilling expectations.

Virtual Desktop Cost-Benefit Analysis — Michael Jacobs, Catlin Group

The analysis contained in this presentation measures the cost of everything from the machines and licenses to the infrastructure for virtual vs. traditional desktop environments.

Honor your best senior team members - Apply for the CIO Ones to Watch Award

Get well-earned public recognition for your top up-and-coming team members, your IT organization and your enterprise. Award winners will be announced, publicized and feted in May 2010, great timing to help attract new IT recruits to your company.

More / Register »

Learn more about the CIO Executive Council »



 
 
RESOURCE CENTER
 
 
 
 

Four Free Wikis Worth Trying Out

Wikis let users share information with one another in a central site. People can share text, articles, spreadsheets, videos, and RSS feeds with fellow collaborators. Here are four free wiki applications that are easy to test-drive to see whether a wiki would be useful to your business.

 

August 25, 2008CIO

As Wikipedia grew in popularity, becoming the eighth most visited site on the Web, many companies decided to purchase and build wikis internally to help enable better communication, knowledge sharing, collaboration and project management between employees.

There are several free Web 2.0 offerings which help users who are new to wikis get their feet wet without installing software on a computer. We take a look at a four of them here:

1. Wiki: Google Sites (part of Google Apps)

Where it came from: Google Sites was built upon Google's acquisition of Jotspot, one of the companies that realized early on wikis had a future as a technology for the workplace.

Getting started: Signing up merely requires a Gmail account. When you sign into Gmail, click on the "More" tab and then "Sites" and you're into the app. You will be prompted to "create site" and you'll be able to decide rather quickly how you want to arrange things as they give you a few templates to choose from. A good starting off point is the web page view.

Ups: Have as many users as you want, and you can make the site publicly accessible if you wanted to take it beyond the corporate walls. Very easy editing tool that looks largely like what you'd use in your e-mail program, or a basic word processor. Like all the wikis mentioned here, you don't need to know how to write software code.

It's easy to embed video, links and other forms of media. There is great version control (so that if you don't like changes that were made, you can revert to an earlier form). Easy admin controls that allow you to make someone an administrator (who has the ability to create and terminate sites), collaborators (who can work within sites), and viewers (who can merely look at what's being done but can't edit). The ability to draw from Google Gadgets (a collection of widgets offered for iGoogle, such as a map or a stock ticker) is also nice.

Downs: No real mobile app to speak of. No offline mode. Though there are no ads to look at now, that could change as Google reserves the right to put ads on its consumer apps. Only 100 MB of storage per site. Pretty stingy considering Google's big server farms we always hear about.

2. Wiki: Socialtext

Where it comes from: Since its founding in 2002, Socialtext has been in the business of bringing social software such as wikis to the enterprise. They don't make their money off ads, so the free version of Socialtext (up to 5 users) is more or less a way for them to show businesses it is worth their time and money to sign up for their enterprise version that supports more users and contains more features.

Getting started: Go to Socialtext's customer login page and click on "get your own free Socialtext wiki."

Ups: Wikis do very well at providing users with context for the content their reading and consuming, and Socialtext is very good in this regard. You can embed content from within the confines of a social software environment (such as another wiki page or blog) as well as areas of the public Web. As an example, you can embed Google search results and RSS feeds rather easily by clicking on the "insert" drop down menu. It has good mobile access and the ability to take a wiki offline. Ability to tag content for easy discovery later on. If you're enamored enough by Socialtext's wiki, and want to expand your social software usage, the company also now gives you platform in which to create a blog.

Downs: While the editing tool allows for someone to post with no coding experience (just like Google Sites), it's not as pretty looking as the Google Sites text editor and has fewer options around font types. It's only free for only up to five users.


3. Wiki: Wikispaces

Where it comes from: Wikispaces is a three-year-old San Francisco start-up that focuses on hosting wikis for everything from businesses to schools.

Getting started: Pretty easy. Go to wikispaces.com and a light green sign up box can be found in the right corner.

Ups: The free version of Wikispaces doesn't have any limit for the amount of users and offers 2 GB of storage. The WYSIWYG (What You See is What You Get) editor is cool in that you can move it around the page to where you like it best. One elegant feature allows users to embed widgets (such as a YouTube video) very easily and have it appear nicely on the page. A "history" tab allows you not only to list previous versions but to compare them as well.

Downs: No mobile access and they've got to pay the bills, so they might serve up some ads along side the application.

4 Wiki: PB Wiki

Where it comes from: Since grabbing its first round of funding in 2006, PB Wiki has been hosting wikis for schools and companies such as AT&T, Citi and Cisco (see these examples on the company's home page).

Getting started: Go to pbwiki.com and click on the red button that says "create a wiki."

Ups: PB Wikis recently released a new version of their wiki that provides a good starting off point for someone with no wiki experience. It simply has two tabs at the top: "view," which would be like a read-only form, and "edit," to make changes/edits/deletions. You can backup your wiki offline if you're worried about something happening to it. The "Insert PlugIn" button in the text editor allows you to add content like the other leading free wikis. It includes the ability to add video (such as YouTube) and Google Gadgets. You can also upload views of key productivity apps, such as a calendar or spreadsheets. While most wikis rely on tagging and search as their primary ways of discovery (which it has), PB Wiki helps you bring the old fashioned folks into the fold with optional folders. Like Google Sites, it has a nice selection of fonts.

Downs: Only free for up to three users.

Other stories by C.G. Lynch © 2009 CXO Media Inc.
 
 
Loading...
TOOLS
CONNECTIONS
Google
Socialtext
Wikispaces
 
WHITE PAPERS

Make Your Business More Productive

Improved collaboration. More efficient processes. Lower costs.
 

Upgrading to VMware vSphere with vWire

Learn how vWire can help ensure the success of your upgrade from ESX 3.x to vSphere.
 

Using ERP To Gain Competitive Advantage in a Tough Economy

For midsize enterprises, now is the perfect time to invest in a significant IT expansion - despite the economic climate.
 

Why BI is Ripe For Businesses of Any Size

Oracle's range of offerings to mid-size and emerging companies reflects its vision that BI and EPM solutions can be embraced by companies of all sizes.
 

Oracle Accelerate

Ovum has been following Oracle's Accelerate program over the last couple of years because they thought it is a smart strategy for penetrating the upper mid-market.
 

Powerful Software Solutions for Midsize Companies

Now, midsize firms and even start ups can benefit from Oracles Accelerate program, which is a fixed-scope/fixed-price approach that ultimately lowers your software costs and speeds time to value.
 

WEBCASTS

Extending Client Refresh - 11 Steps to Maximize Savings

11 Steps to Maximize Savings
 

CIOs Weigh In On Virtualization

Date: November 19, 2009 Time: 2:00 PM EST

Jim Malone, Editorial Director of CXO Media's C...
 

Beyond Installing ITPM Software: How a global company reduced risk and successfully implemented ITPM

Hear directly from one of your peers who has reduced risk and successfully implemented ITPM in this Live Webcast. ...
 

IT Consolidation Made Easy

The Primary IT Initiative for Reducing Costs
 

Taking a Seat at the Executive Table: The Reality of Virtualization

This year, for the first time, the number of virtual machines is on track to exceed the number of physical machines...
 

Who Are the Data Center Leaders?

Today's data center is still very much a heterogeneous environment. Gabriel Consulting recently surveyed over 250 d...
 

Resource Alerts

Get instant email notifications by topic when white papers, webcasts, and case studies are added to our library.

 
FEATURED SPONSORS
 
 
 
SPONSORED LINKS
 

Learn How Web Site Performance Impacts Shopper Behavior

Return on Information: Google Enterprise Search pays you back

ROI of Application Delivery Controllers

Making Consumer Two-Factor Authentication Simple and Cost-Effective

Webcast: Unleashing the Power of Customer Data

Build a Foundation for Unified Communications

Removing the Barriers to IT Governance: How On-Demand Software Changes the Game

Should Your Email Live In The Cloud? A Comparative Cost Analysis

Learn about the growing threat of insider data theft.

Adobe® LiveCycle® solutions for business process automation

10 Ways Excel Drives More Value from Your SAP Investment

The Key to Proving and Improving the Value of IT to the Company

Unleash the Power of Java with Oracle JRockit Real Time

Taking the Service Desk to the Next Level

Return on Information: Google Enterprise Search pays you back. Get the facts.

VMware. The source for Business Infrastructure Virtualization.

ShoreTel tells businesses to untangle from competitors' complexity and turn to its brilliantly simple UC solution

See how AT&T can help protect your network.

Streamline IT Costs. Boost Performance with WAN Optimization.

Build your 1st app FREE with Force.com

TDWI checklist helps define data readiness for analytics. Download report.

A Clear View Toward Virtualization

Virtualization Technology as a Business Solution

The rules of infrastructure management just changed.

A Clear View Toward Virtualization

Upgrading to VMware vSphere with vWire

Maximizing website Return on Information with high-quality search

Gartner Magic Quadrant, Application Delivery Controllers 2009

Authentication as a Service by Forrester Research

Disciplined Autonomy: Resolving the Tension Between Flexibility and Control

Enterprise Capture: Your Onramp to Business Process Automation

Cloud Computing--What is its Potential Value for Your Company?

Seven Design Requirements for Web 2.0 Threat Protection

How Consumerization of IT Will Make Your Business More Productive

How does a software company save big with Green IT?

Translate business strategy into IT strategy and obtain maximum benefits.

eBook: How Can You Make Your People Productive Anywhere?

Mind the Talent Gap: Global Survey on IT and HR trends and challenges

"Enterprise-Proven" is the Prerequisite for Enterprise SaaS Portal Solutions

AT&T Synaptic Storage as a Service. Expand on demand

Trend Micro ranked #1 against real-world malware. Read more.

Webinar: Jump-start your in-house e-discovery with Ringtail QuickCull from FTI Technology

Top Five CIO Challenges

Read the RSA report: Security for Business Innovation

64-page prescriptive guide to security, compliance, and IT operations.

Increase UPS efficiency without sacrificing protection.

eZine: A Roadmap to Reducing IT Complexity

Reduce risk, gain agility. See how Progress can help your business.

Virtualization Technology as a Business Solution

eZine: A Roadmap to Reducing IT Complexity