Wikis For Dummies®

Chapter . Introduction

Wikis, born in 1995, had a quiet childhood. Now, as wikis approach their teens, they are having a heck of a coming-out party as they are used absolutely everywhere for everything imaginable. Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia created by using a wiki, is one of the most-used reference works on the planet. United States (U.S.) federal intelligence agencies — the CIA, the NSA, the Defense Department, and others — use a wiki to help gather, share, and analyze information. Google, IBM, Motorola, SAP, Sun, Yahoo!, and tens of thousands of other companies run important parts of their businesses with wikis. Hundreds of thousands of families, clubs, schools, and scientists use wikis for every sort of task. We even wrote this book with the help of a wiki. All these examples are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to prominent use of wikis.

The number of ways how wikis are being offered and hosted is also exploding. In October 2006, Google (the famous search engine company) purchased JotSpot, a commercially developed wiki, which will be added to Google’s core offerings of mail, calendar, and shared documents sometime in 2007. WikiSpaces, wetpaint, Wikidot, Wikia, XWiki, BluWiki, seedwiki, PBwiki, Riters, StikiPad, Central Desktop, and others offer free, hosted wikis that are ready to use over the Internet. Companies such as Socialtext and Atlassian offer wikis that can either be installed or hosted. By far, the largest number of wiki sites are run by open source ...