When it comes to timing, Joe Kraus knows when to hold them--and surely when to fold them.
As co-founder of Excite, one of the earliest Internet search companies, Kraus belongs to that class of tech entrepreneurs that flew close to the sun in the late 1990s. He also ranks among the lucky few who escaped the Internet meltdown.
Nowadays, Kraus is applying lessons learned from the go-go days to his latest venture, JotSpot, a San Francisco-based company that builds applications around online collaborative authoring systems. With wikis beginning to find their place in the business world, Kraus believes the technology could lead to another Internet shift in the way corporations work.
How far the wiki phenomenon will go remains an open question. Critics believe the hype has far outstripped the potential--let alone the performance. But Kraus believes wikis can function as lightweight alternatives to heavy-duty CRM (customer relationship management) applications where corporate developers use them as tools to build customized enterprise applications. CNET News.com recently talked with Kraus to find out about the future of wiki technology.
Q: Considering the mania around wikis, can you explain why we shouldn't think this is going to become the second coming of the dot-com? The resemblance seems striking. Kraus: Wikis in general?
Yes. Kraus: I think all technologies go through the typical hype cycle. There will be a point at which wikis are perceived as good for absolutely nothing and then they will find their natural rhythm and become a staple in the way that people manage and collaborate.
Some new, new technology never replaces the thing that happened before. It finds its own place in the middle ground.
In the corporate setting as well?
Kraus: Absolutely. If you look at any technology--from Bluetooth to blogs--they have gone through this cycle of monstrous hype where there's an absolute crash before they then find their natural place.
Is that true about blogs? They haven't hit the crash phase. It's only the last year-and-a-half that they have really become hyped to ridiculous levels. Kraus: That's true. I think they're probably still on the growth part of the curve, but certainly technologies like Bluetooth went through this. It's only now that we really are starting to see interesting applications of Bluetooth that probably make sense as opposed to what we were talking about before.
So, wikis are not a fad? Kraus: I don't believe so. When I started to look at this market two years ago, what was interesting was that it felt like the Internet in 1993. Back then, you had this technology that was in the hands of tens of thousands of companies--where the bottom ranks of the organizations, the engineers, were using it and the people at the top had no idea. To me, that is indicative of a technology uptake trend.
OK, so how do you make money from this? Kraus: Well, JotSpot is a subscription service. There's a hosted service that we provide, and there is something we're calling the JotBox, which is an appliance-based version that larger enterprises tend to buy when they want to host it behind the firewall. But we will remotely manage that appliance into the software update.
And you'll charge using a cost-per-user model? Kraus: Originally, JotSpot was playing around with a cost-per-user model for its wiki, but I think there are problems with that model.
What's the biggest one? Kraus: It punishes the exact act you want to reward, which is sharing the wiki. It's a collaborative tool, and so the more people who collaborate, the more it costs. I don't think that's correct. You want to tie it to how much value you get from the service, which I think applies more closely to how many pages are in the wiki.
What gives you confidence that user behavior is going to shift in a big way toward the use of wiki-like products such as yours?
Kraus: The adoption of new technologies is always difficult because you've got existing habits, and the hardest thing to change is an existing habit.
What are the habits today that potentially compete against wikis? Kraus: You have e-mail, you've got shared folders--the truth is that it's going to take time. Wikis don't replace e-mail. It never happens. Some new, new technology never replaces the thing that happened before. It finds its own place in the middle ground.
There's generally a broad sense that you get too much e-mail. E-mail is a great communication vehicle, but it's a terrible vehicle for storing conclusions or decisions. The challenge for any company in a space like ours, or any company providing wiki technologies, has been how to tie into those existing habits. How do you make publishing to the wiki as easy as writing an e-mail? This takes time, just as any
"Nothing is more powerful than a web page for an edit button"
Wikis are great for getting data into a black box, they don't address the problem of getting data out of the black box. Nothing is more powerful than a good database, because this allows you to look at the relationships, tailor the queries, and ensure that all this data is reliable and available. Look around and you'll see 30 years of work improving these processes.
Don't mistake ease of writing for quality of reading.
Good wikis have a database behind them, and can be readily searched -- some even have SQL extensions, for end-user queries. Almost all have a "Search" field or page.
I've been using wikis since Ward Cunningham first invented them. Early versions were "write-only" systems, but that has all changed.
The latest work I've done has been with groups of fairly unsophisticated computer users (<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.IslandSeeds.org" target="_newWindow">http://www.IslandSeeds.org</a>). It is amazing what they can accomplish!
Another "wiki must-have" is a good editor/moderator. The newbies need to understand that they can do no wrong, but that others may come along later and "clean up" things a bit. Without one or more editor/moderators, a wiki can quickly disintegrate into a "write only" site.
Part of wiki culture is that there is no "right or wrong," only "better or worse." That which fights entropy is better, but that doesn't mean one must think things through completely before posting something!
The thing wikis do best is help define unknowns. If you already know what you need, yea -- slap a front end onto a database. But if you don't know if you're going to build a building, a religion, or a concept, a wiki is the way to go. Once you get past the brainstorming stage, THEN you can freeze your structure into fifth normal form if you find that necessary.
"Nothing is more powerful than a web page with and edit button."
With an edit button.
What the backend does is not what the most important part of the system cares about: the human. A single person may not write well. Most of them don't, but in mass, they determine what to say and how best to say it. That is why folksonomies rule over formal ontologies in actual use. My point was oldThink does this stuff with spreadsheets and as formal as that can be, it is a painful interface and not cheaply distributable. It's only virtue is naming the cells and columns to direct the edits.
I was part of the teams that spent years working on integrated bibliographic systems for hypermedia only to be handed our heads by one-way http links, gray pages, and PageRank. The power is not, as the other fellow said, in the implementation. It is in the ease of editing the content for the interested.
Yes, a moderator is very important. Every evolving system needs at least one strange attractor.
"Nothing is more powerful than a web page for an edit button"
Wikis are great for getting data into a black box, they don't address the problem of getting data out of the black box. Nothing is more powerful than a good database, because this allows you to look at the relationships, tailor the queries, and ensure that all this data is reliable and available. Look around and you'll see 30 years of work improving these processes.
Don't mistake ease of writing for quality of reading.
Good wikis have a database behind them, and can be readily searched -- some even have SQL extensions, for end-user queries. Almost all have a "Search" field or page.
I've been using wikis since Ward Cunningham first invented them. Early versions were "write-only" systems, but that has all changed.
The latest work I've done has been with groups of fairly unsophisticated computer users (<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.IslandSeeds.org" target="_newWindow">http://www.IslandSeeds.org</a>). It is amazing what they can accomplish!
Another "wiki must-have" is a good editor/moderator. The newbies need to understand that they can do no wrong, but that others may come along later and "clean up" things a bit. Without one or more editor/moderators, a wiki can quickly disintegrate into a "write only" site.
Part of wiki culture is that there is no "right or wrong," only "better or worse." That which fights entropy is better, but that doesn't mean one must think things through completely before posting something!
The thing wikis do best is help define unknowns. If you already know what you need, yea -- slap a front end onto a database. But if you don't know if you're going to build a building, a religion, or a concept, a wiki is the way to go. Once you get past the brainstorming stage, THEN you can freeze your structure into fifth normal form if you find that necessary.
"Nothing is more powerful than a web page with and edit button."
With an edit button.
What the backend does is not what the most important part of the system cares about: the human. A single person may not write well. Most of them don't, but in mass, they determine what to say and how best to say it. That is why folksonomies rule over formal ontologies in actual use. My point was oldThink does this stuff with spreadsheets and as formal as that can be, it is a painful interface and not cheaply distributable. It's only virtue is naming the cells and columns to direct the edits.
I was part of the teams that spent years working on integrated bibliographic systems for hypermedia only to be handed our heads by one-way http links, gray pages, and PageRank. The power is not, as the other fellow said, in the implementation. It is in the ease of editing the content for the interested.
Yes, a moderator is very important. Every evolving system needs at least one strange attractor.
I've been praying that someone develop VOIP security that works. Several times each day my Vonage system goes silent. It is always when I am normally out ant the office is closed.
When I return I check for a dial tone and frequently get nothing but dead silence.
I discovered that the activity lights on both the cable modem and the Sys-Link Vonage modem is going wild; so, I simply shut the computer down, wait a minute aand re-boot it. The problem is solved again I leave the computer inactive for about an hour or more.
So far I have received mos of my calls on my cell phone because the VOIP is call forwarded to it.
I've been praying that someone develop VOIP security that works. Several times each day my Vonage system goes silent. It is always when I am normally out ant the office is closed.
When I return I check for a dial tone and frequently get nothing but dead silence.
I discovered that the activity lights on both the cable modem and the Sys-Link Vonage modem is going wild; so, I simply shut the computer down, wait a minute aand re-boot it. The problem is solved again I leave the computer inactive for about an hour or more.
So far I have received mos of my calls on my cell phone because the VOIP is call forwarded to it.
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Ever have to load all of those strung out comments from a review process into a database so the decisions and the money travel together?
Nothing is more powerful than a web page with and edit button.
Ever have to load all of those strung out comments from a review process into a database so the decisions and the money travel together?
Nothing is more powerful than a web page with and edit button.
Wikis are great for getting data into a black box, they don't address the problem of getting data out of the black box. Nothing is more powerful than a good database, because this allows you to look at the relationships, tailor the queries, and ensure that all this data is reliable and available. Look around and you'll see 30 years of work improving these processes.
Don't mistake ease of writing for quality of reading.
searched -- some even have SQL extensions, for end-user
queries. Almost all have a "Search" field or page.
I've been using wikis since Ward Cunningham first invented
them. Early versions were "write-only" systems, but that has all
changed.
The latest work I've done has been with groups of fairly
unsophisticated computer users (<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.IslandSeeds.org" target="_newWindow">http://www.IslandSeeds.org</a>). It
is amazing what they can accomplish!
Another "wiki must-have" is a good editor/moderator. The
newbies need to understand that they can do no wrong, but that
others may come along later and "clean up" things a bit. Without
one or more editor/moderators, a wiki can quickly disintegrate
into a "write only" site.
Part of wiki culture is that there is no "right or wrong," only
"better or worse." That which fights entropy is better, but that
doesn't mean one must think things through completely before
posting something!
The thing wikis do best is help define unknowns. If you already
know what you need, yea -- slap a front end onto a database.
But if you don't know if you're going to build a building, a
religion, or a concept, a wiki is the way to go. Once you get past
the brainstorming stage, THEN you can freeze your structure
into fifth normal form if you find that necessary.
With an edit button.
What the backend does is not what the most important part of the system cares about: the human. A single person may not write well. Most of them don't, but in mass, they determine what to say and how best to say it. That is why folksonomies rule over formal ontologies in actual use. My point was oldThink does this stuff with spreadsheets and as formal as that can be, it is a painful interface and not cheaply distributable. It's only virtue is naming the cells and columns to direct the edits.
I was part of the teams that spent years working on integrated bibliographic systems for hypermedia only to be handed our heads by one-way http links, gray pages, and PageRank. The power is not, as the other fellow said, in the implementation. It is in the ease of editing the content for the interested.
Yes, a moderator is very important. Every evolving system needs at least one strange attractor.
Wikis are great for getting data into a black box, they don't address the problem of getting data out of the black box. Nothing is more powerful than a good database, because this allows you to look at the relationships, tailor the queries, and ensure that all this data is reliable and available. Look around and you'll see 30 years of work improving these processes.
Don't mistake ease of writing for quality of reading.
searched -- some even have SQL extensions, for end-user
queries. Almost all have a "Search" field or page.
I've been using wikis since Ward Cunningham first invented
them. Early versions were "write-only" systems, but that has all
changed.
The latest work I've done has been with groups of fairly
unsophisticated computer users (<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.IslandSeeds.org" target="_newWindow">http://www.IslandSeeds.org</a>). It
is amazing what they can accomplish!
Another "wiki must-have" is a good editor/moderator. The
newbies need to understand that they can do no wrong, but that
others may come along later and "clean up" things a bit. Without
one or more editor/moderators, a wiki can quickly disintegrate
into a "write only" site.
Part of wiki culture is that there is no "right or wrong," only
"better or worse." That which fights entropy is better, but that
doesn't mean one must think things through completely before
posting something!
The thing wikis do best is help define unknowns. If you already
know what you need, yea -- slap a front end onto a database.
But if you don't know if you're going to build a building, a
religion, or a concept, a wiki is the way to go. Once you get past
the brainstorming stage, THEN you can freeze your structure
into fifth normal form if you find that necessary.
With an edit button.
What the backend does is not what the most important part of the system cares about: the human. A single person may not write well. Most of them don't, but in mass, they determine what to say and how best to say it. That is why folksonomies rule over formal ontologies in actual use. My point was oldThink does this stuff with spreadsheets and as formal as that can be, it is a painful interface and not cheaply distributable. It's only virtue is naming the cells and columns to direct the edits.
I was part of the teams that spent years working on integrated bibliographic systems for hypermedia only to be handed our heads by one-way http links, gray pages, and PageRank. The power is not, as the other fellow said, in the implementation. It is in the ease of editing the content for the interested.
Yes, a moderator is very important. Every evolving system needs at least one strange attractor.
When I return I check for a dial tone and frequently get nothing but dead silence.
I discovered that the activity lights on both the cable modem and the Sys-Link Vonage modem is going wild; so, I simply shut the computer down, wait a minute aand re-boot it. The problem is solved again I leave the computer inactive for about an hour or more.
So far I have received mos of my calls on my cell phone because the VOIP is call forwarded to it.
When I return I check for a dial tone and frequently get nothing but dead silence.
I discovered that the activity lights on both the cable modem and the Sys-Link Vonage modem is going wild; so, I simply shut the computer down, wait a minute aand re-boot it. The problem is solved again I leave the computer inactive for about an hour or more.
So far I have received mos of my calls on my cell phone because the VOIP is call forwarded to it.