Tag Archive for 'wiki'

Are Six Apart losing it?

Published
by
Tom Raftery
on 20/12/2006
in Technology
. 4 Comments

Six Apart are the US based company who make blog software TypePad, Movable Type, and Vox.

Loic Le Meur, is the Eurppean head of Six Apart. Loic was also the organiser of the recent Le Web 3 mess and has written a blog post (and emailed attendees) his side of what happened in Paris last week.

The post is one long non-apology and a textbook example of negationism.

For instance, in the post Loic mentions that there was a standing ovation for the politicians - there was, for Shimon Peres, when Loic himself asked the delegates to stand to show their appreciation. There was no standing ovation for either of the French presidential candidates. Why?

  1. They were foist on the audience at the last minute (at least we had 24 hours notice that Shimon Peres was coming)
  2. They addressed the audience in French (Shimon Peres addressed the audience in English)
  3. Unlike Shimon Peres, they demonstrated a clear lack of understanding of the Internet (Sarkozy, yet again demonstrating the mental acuity of a brain damaged slug, even went so far as to say he wants to “control it”!)
  4. Unlike Peres, Sarkozy even refused to take questions from the audience

But it is not just Loic, Mena Trott was at Le Web 3 as well. Mena is the president of Six Apart and, as such she addressed the audience at Le Web.

Mena’s presentation was one of the shortest of all the talks. She got on stage, spoke for about five minutes, and rushed off again taking no questions.

Now, if blogging is supposed to be about conversations, here we have two principals of Six Apart doing old-school, top down, I know better than you and damned if I am going to listen to you or take your opinion into account.

Guys, if you want to seriously damage the reputation of your company, keep this up.
Shel hit the nail on the head when he said:

But if I went to a rock concert to discover the lead off group was a string octet playing Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. I would be confused and disappointed. As so many of Le Web 3 attendee seem to have felt.

On the other hand, if you want people to continue to take you and your products seriously, learn (or re-learn) what blogging is all about. Engage, have conversations, ask people’s opinions instead of ramming your ideas down their unsuspecting throats. Then you will start to earn back all the trust you lost in Paris.

See also Ewan Spence’s excellent response to Loic’s post.

Wikis for quality manual projects?

Published
by
Tom Raftery
on 3/12/2006
in Web 2.0 and cix
. 7 Comments

Wikis are great tools for documentation projects. Especially if the people creating the documents are dispersed geographically.

However, I am embarking on a project to write a quality manual for the CIX data centre (Cork’s first fully redundant data centre). Part of the process in creating a quality manual is that the various sections within it need to be reviewed and approved before they can be released.

Does anyone know of a wiki with that functionality built-in?

Le Web 3 wiki

Published
by
Tom Raftery
on 7/11/2006
in Web 2.0
. 1 Comment

Loic has put up a wiki for the attendees of Le Web 3.

This was a very useful resource last year for finding out about good hotels in Paris (I found a cheap one with free wifi on the wiki) and for organising get togethers.

Hopefully it will be as good again this year.

Collaborative software gets hotter!

Published
by
Tom Raftery
on 1/11/2006
in Search Engines, Technology and Web 2.0
. 0 Comments

A lot has already been written about Jotspot’s announcement that they were acquired by Google yesterday - congratulations to Joe Kraus and the team.

JotSpot is a wiki application with builtin functions for adding calendars, spreadsheets, blogs, photos, etc.

JotSpot wiki interface

This was a predictable enough move on Google’s part as they had no wiki software in their arsenal of Live web applications.

This acquisition by Google gives Google access to wiki software for its enterprise play. The list of Google’s applications in this space is becoming unassailable and their acquisitions strategy is extremely smart - they are buying proven applications with intact and enthusiastic customers already in place.

Interestingly, I see Jeff Nolan and Zoli Erdos are pointing out that JotSpot’s two main competitors, SocialText and Atlassian, are offering free migration for JotSpot customers to their respective platforms!

This acquisition only goes to further prove that collaborative software is here to stay.

I loved Dan Farber’s throwaway:

I doubt that JotSpot will be renamed Gspot

Wiki recommendations

Published
by
Tom Raftery
on 15/1/2006
in Personal
. 11 Comments

I have a project coming up which will require the installation of a Wiki on the client’s server (a shared LAMP server). The project is pro-bono from my side as the client doesn’t have a budget and works in the area of special education.

The project is to roll out a simple system to document the protocols and procedures to be followed by the staff so they are all using the same approach in their work.

The client’s organisation has a staff of about 70 working throughout the country. The staff are not technically literate so the wiki software needs to have a WYSIWYG editor.

I looked at Media Wiki but it doesn’t seem to have a WYSIWYG editor and I’m not clear if Moin Moin can be installed on a shared server.

Any/all advice greatfully accepted as always.

I’m at the IT@Cork conference today

Published
by
Tom Raftery
on 30/11/2005
in Blogging, Business blogging and IT@Cork
. 5 Comments

I’m going to be at the IT@Cork Conference today (Wed 30th) - Robert Scoble is Opening the conference with a talk on Business Blogging - I can’t wait.

I’ll be blogging the conference live on the IT@Cork blog and I’ll be recording interviews with delegates and speakers - I will upload those interviews on the IT@Cork blog too.

Later this evening I will be at the geek dinner with Robert Scoble in Proby’s Bistro, Proby’s Quay, Cork - see this Google Map if you are unsure where it is. The dinner is on at 8pm - all bloggers welcome - be sure to register on the wiki.

So, a busy day ahead - hope to see you there.

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