Approximately one year ago; Google aquired Jotspot, a Wiki based startup. For the past year the site has been shut to new signups as Google go about the revamping process.
Techrunch are today reporting on the possiblity that Jotspot is about to be reopened to the public. From Techcrunch:
Google Operating System noted that the Jotspot discussion board and help desk have moved over to Google. More telling, Google Blogoscoped discovered that “jotspot” is now a Google Apps service code name. Attempts to log in to the service are shown a page with a (somewhat fuzzy) Google Wiki logo.
Google previously announced that Jotspot would be integrated into Google Apps and part of the suite of online office applications Google is developing or acquiring.
Google have long been touted as potential purchasers of Wikipedia but it seems they’re more likely to launch a rival rather than aquire the established Wiki of choice.
I wonder if Google are going to lay off the Wikipedia ‘link love’ as a result?
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4 responses so far ↓
1 Today Is Not Over Yet
// Sep 3, 2007 at 7:52 pm
I really think they can kill Wikipedia.. but I am not sure they are going after it… and it would be a really bad PR move.
2 Cormac Moylan
// Sep 4, 2007 at 12:17 pm
I can’t see how it could be a bad PR move. Personally I would love to see Wikipedia dropped from G altogether. They’re ranking too highly for competitive terms.
3 Robert Synnott
// Sep 9, 2007 at 10:33 am
I doubt they’ll go after Wikipedia itself, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they go into the hosted Wiki market. Google Code already has a primitive Wiki, actually. And if they do, they’ll become dominant in that field very easily, no doubt; it’s just the sort of thing that they’re good at.
4 Robert Synnott
// Sep 9, 2007 at 10:34 am
Oh, I doubt that they’d drop Wikipedia from their search results for any reason other than dodgy SEO practices (similar to those briefly used by Wordpress.org, perhaps). They have never manipulated search results to destroy competition.
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