PBwiki Archive

Wiki provider PBwiki has announced the launch of "PBwiki Professional Plus" today. Professional Plus offers full 24×7 support for their collaboration suite. They guarantee a response within one hour no matter the time of day. Professional Plus is an upgrade in support from their Professional plan.

From the release regarding pricing for Professional Plus, "PBwiki Professional Plus is available immediately, and costs $11/user/month. Existing business customers can choose to stay on the Professional Edition (which includes end-user support 6 days per week, from 7 AM to 7 PM Pacific), or upgrade to Professional Plus for an additional $3/user/month."

This new support model makes sense for customers who rely on their PBwiki site for public consumption. I am not 100% sold that a per user fee makes sense for this type of support – the majority of the time select users will be the contact for a software package with regards to enterprise support.

Check out PBwiki founder David Weekly’s startup tips.

Rob Hof at BusinessWeek is reporting that Jotspot will be relaunching tonight as "Google Sites" as part of the Apps Premier Edition offering a free version and a $50/year per user with a SLA. The Google Sites site is available now. Google acquired JotSpot in late 2006 and has basically been idling as of late. Currently the Sites login page is only allowing @jotspot.com email addresses access into the system.

Google describes Google Sites as, "Create a single place to bring together all the information your team needs to share, including docs, videos, photos, calendars and attachments." It looks like these tools are meant for internal team use.

Hof believes this is a hit against Microsoft Sharepoint or IBM’s Lotus Notes. Not really a fair comparison as both of these offerings are much more robust. However, could this be a direct attack at pbWiki which is widely used for team and internal wikis? And for the sharing functions for rich media, is it an attack against the white label social networking providers including KickApps, Ning, Magnify, etc?

Rex Hammock hopes that Google Sites helps people "get" wikis. I hope people never get caught up on lingo – as long as it does what they need it to, who cares what it’s called. Rafe Needleman has some good screenshots and discussion on how Google Sites fits into the overall Google office suite.

Hof notes that company personnel may push the use of Google Sites outside of IT department approval and by the time IT gets involved, it will be too late and they will be forced to use the tool. I disagree with this but today IT has to be more proactive with forward-moving technologies than they ever have been before. The days of an AS/400 sitting in the closet are over. 

One of the issues I struggle with is how much information should be shared with the public regarding your startup. Several months ago Ryan Carson shared every detail about his startup, DropSend as he was looking for a buyer. As a former accountant, I thought (and still do) this was a mistake. Sharing sensitive information should be done only when absolutely necessary and when the team leaders agree on it.

But what about general stats? Is it always wise to share the data about your startup? Remember that one person may look at it as half-full and another half-empty. I do think it's important to share data with your community and the media.

As I was using my PBwiki (CN coverage) account, I visited their blog, The Daily Peanut. Their recent stats post I think is a great example of good stats to share. The shared stats include:

• Private vs. Public wikis
• Free vs. Premium wikis (not 100% sure I like this one)
• Browser types
• SSL usage

Simple stats that provide some insight into how PBwiki users are using the tool. These type of stats can also help to start a conversation with the PBwiki community. So I ask, what do you think is the right level of stats to share with the general public?

The battle of the Wiki heavyweights continues between Wetpaint and PBwiki. Today PBwiki notes on their blog that several new features have been added to their already quite impressive lineup.

The features include:

• Spreadsheets
• Voice chat
• Event-planning
• Calendars
• Video upload

The hosted Wiki space is heating up. The days of Mediawiki and it's hard to use WikiTML are over for the average user. Last week Wetpaint launched WikiPaint (officially named Wetpaint Please Touch) and now PBwiki adds more business and organizational tools. I called 2007 the "year of the wiki" and I continue to stand by that statement. Are there other players in this hosted Wiki space that I should be reporting on? Let me know in the comments.

And don't forget to check out the startup tips from PBwiki CEO, David Weekly.

Earlier today Wetpaint announced that they have added the ability for private messaging for their Wiki clients. Now, PBwiki has announced that they have partnered with YackPack to provide a new widget for their Wiki clients called WalkieTalkie.

YackPack has created the WalkieTalkie, a widget that you can install on your PBwiki in about two minutes. Then, each and every human or humanoid who visits that PBwiki of yours can simply click-and-hold the YackPack button and, through the miracle of “Technology,” talk to anyone else visiting the page. It’s like an online virtual intercom and it adds the power of voice to any collaboration.

“There is something magical about hearing someone else's voice,” said Ramit Sethi, PBwiki co-founder. “It takes collaboration to an entirely different level. It's more personal and takes away the OMG FLAMER LAMO stuff that you see on IRC. It brings people closer together.”

With these communication changes, I stand firm that 2007 is more Wiki than Mashup. Of course neither of these tools, Wepaint nor PBwiki are available for install on your server, but only as an ASP model. As I noted to Ben from Wetpaint, they should package it up and offer it for a nominal fee. Just look at Vbulletin for a great example of how this can work.