Google acquires JotSpot, a wiki startup

Hot on the heels of Yahoo!'s wiki offering, Google acquires Jotspot.

Google goes shopping again - and this time around it, picks up JotSpot, a Palo Alto company that makes collaborative websites called wikis. The most promiment wiki implementation, of course, is wikipedia.com which allows the wisdom of the community to maintain accuracy and standards.

The financial details of JotSpot acquisition are not revealed yet. But Google's strategy is loud and clear, as it states in its mission statement - to organize and make all the world's information universally accessible. The acquisition of JotPsot fits in well with that strategy. Google might just go a step further soon, and integrate wikis to the host of services they already offer like email, word processing and so on. 

For the ones who came in late, wikis are WebPages that can be easily created and edited freely by users using any web browser. In Ward's original description, wiki is the simplest online database that could possibly work. It allows people in different locations to work on a page. The sharing of information online becomes much more easier. Lately, a lot has been happening in the "wiki" market. 

The likes of Microsoft, Yahoo and IBM have realized the wiki potential and would soon come out with their own wiki offerings. Yahoo recently joined hands with San Bruno-based PBwiki to host wikis for Yahoo Groups. And so Google could not afford to be left behind - but this once, they are not the first among the biggies to move in. 

JotSpot co-founder and Chief Executive Joe Kraus settled on a deal with Google after a lot of discussions with other major Internet companies. 

Why did Google go for JotSpot and not some other company? JotSpot currently does wiki-hosting for about 2,000 odd companies in the Silicon Valley, and that’s a big number; considering the fact that you have companies like British Telecom, Symantec and eBay among others queuing up for the wiki services. 

JotSpot is will no longer the JotBox appliance, a wiki server appliance and software combo used by several of its big-business customers. However, they will continue to support it. JotSpot is also discontinuing sales of its JotSpot wiki server software, and focusing on the online application.

When a company like Google acquires you, very few can contain themselves. JotSpot co-founder and Chief Executive Joe Kraus said that it is an exciting step forward and that when he saw Google on the wiki space, the more excited he got being a part of Google. He also reaffirmed that being with Google allows them to plug into resources worldwide and access to world-class data centers with a team of incredibly smart people in the nerd paradise. 

Before signing off, Kraus said that Google definitely knows what they want to do and that it’s exciting to play at such a high-level and scale.

Dial G for Google the Doctor.

Yahoo Autos Green Center
The Yahoo Autos Green Center is dedicated to alternative fuel vehicles.

Tim Berners-Lee: Turning the Web into an object of scientific research
The University of Southampton, MIT and Web Science Research Initiative WSRI to research evolution of the Net.

Yahoo! Food offers recipes and more
The newly launched Yahoo! Food offers a variety of recipes, dining guides, restaurants and planners.

Google acquires JotSpot, a wiki startup
Hot on the heels of Yahoo!'s wiki offering, Google acquires Jotspot.

Eudora embraces Open Source

Singapore to get free wireless Internet

Google Docs and Spreadsheets

Google beats Yahoo to acquire YouTube

Yahoo launches Time Capsule Project