Business wikis line up at Under the Radar

At the Under the Radar: Office 2.0 conference on Friday, one of the sessions I'll be moderating is called "Team Work." Yes, almost everything in business is about teamwork, but there are some interesting Web products that will be demo'd during this session. I previewed two of them.

First up, SystemOne, an enterprise-knowledge-management system masquerading as an ordinary business wiki. What's cool about this product is that it automatically creates, at the bottom of each page, a list of relevant other wiki pages, feeds, and Web search results. The autocreation of the links removes some of the need to manually create links to connect wiki pages together. This is a key feature if the wiki is to be used by a lot of people who aren't hypertext-savvy.

A cleaner wiki you could not imagine

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Everything about SystemOne is simple, clean, and straightforward. Unlike many wikis, the new user will not find it overwhelming.

The system supports structured data. New "aspects," or templates, can now be dragged onto SystemOne pages. Aspects include items such as "question," "investment opportunity," and a few other useful business-related forms.

SystemOne has been out for a while and has received favorable reviews. The news at the Under the Radar conference: It will soon be available as a hosted Web service from the company, for $55 per user per month. (A single-user trial account is free). Previously, businesses had to install it on their own servers. Enterprises will likely still want that option, but the hosted solution gives companies a chance to try the service out before getting the IT wonks involved with setting it up on-premises.

Side note on SystemOne: The team has taken its search and relevance technology and used it to create the cool Flickr mashup, Retrievr. You sketch a picture, and it will find pictures that look sort of like it. It's a fun diversion.

Brainkeeper is a solid business wiki at a very competitive price.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

I was also able to preview BrainKeeper, another wiki tool with business features. Like most modern wiki products, it's got the requisite WYSIWYG editor, so you don't have to train your users on wiki markup language. It also supports a very un-wiki-like hierarchy of information: you can attach subpages to pages, as opposed to just linking everything like crazy. It's a nice bone for uptight corporate information dictators. Also to their liking: Brainkeeper has an approval workflow for pages. A page on the service can be marked as pending until a designated person gives it the go-ahead for public distribution.

Brainkeeper wikis can be completely rebranded by customers, and the price for the service is competitive: $35 a month gives you access for nine authors; $40 a month also lets in 100 guests (readers).

The other two products I'm looking forward seeing in the Team Work session are Blogtronix, an enterprise blogging and wiki tool, and Firestoker, a new team application whose founder I couldn't connect with in time for this writeup. Apparently he's in Cairo right now and suffering through bad connectivity. Mysterious.

See also: Where do I start? There are many wiki tools on the market. But if you're interested in these products be sure to check out Atlassian, SocialText, and Wetpaint.

These products will be shown at the Under the Radar: Office 2.0 conference on March 23 in Mountain View, Calif. I'll be moderating presentations all day. If you'd like to come see the start-ups, and maybe grab a free Webware T-shirt, use this link for a discounted conference pass.

[jsilvers]

Atlassian demoing at Under the Radar, too

Thanks for the mention in the article. Also, we will have a demo stand at the event to show Confluence; we're one of 10 "graduate circle" sponsors at the event.

[vassko]

Let me give you a Blogtronix Demo

I see that you don't know much about Blogtroix. Let me give you a demo, so you know what we do and how we are different.
Vassil Mladjov
415.420.2883

[boopinkbutterfly]

I've been looking for a wiki that's simple, clean and straightforward.
I'll find time to know more about this. In regards to brainkeeper its great that don't have to train your users on wiki markup language. What's more with blogtronix?



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boopinkbutterfly
http://retireoneyear.com