Rob Hof notes–hat tip to Ross Mayfield–tonight in “Jotspot Returns as Google Sites: Wiki Style Collaboration” (emphasis added):
Ever since Google bought the wiki-based online application startup Jotspot in late 2006, people have been wondering if it had disappeared forever inside the bowels of the search giant. Tonight, Google’s launching Google Sites, using Jotspot’s technology to create a free group collaboration service that will be part of its online software suite Google Apps.
Like many things that come in one end and go out the other, it seems to bear little resemblance to it’s former self. TechCrunch observes in “It Took 16 Months, But Google Relaunches Jotspot” (emphasis added)
Google Sites looks absolutely nothing like Jotspot, other than the fact that both are hosted wikis. All of the structured data templates launched by Jotspot in July 2006 have been stripped out. Users now have a choice between just four basic templates – a standard wiki, a dashboard where google gadgets can be embedded, a blog-like template for announcements, a file cabinet for file uploads, and a page for lists of items. Instead of creating structured templates, users will now simply embed spreadsheets, presentations and word documents from Google Docs, as well as Google Calendars, YouTube Videos and Picasa Albums.
I had blogged about the Jotspot acquisition in “Jotspot Dissolves into Google Business Model” and later speculated that the “Dodgeball Duo Departure a Harbinger for Jotspot Wunderkinder” (although the earn out period still probably has eight months to run so this may still prove accurate). If Joe Kraus’ picture and his son’s lego creations weren’t splashed across one of the demo sites, it would require a vivid imagination to associate this new offering in any way with Jotspot.
The acquisition–and Google’s putting any further sites on stun and current sites into limbo–triggered our search for a new wiki/workspace provider. We’ve been pleased with our selection of Central Desktop and have built more than 100 private workspaces for use with customers since we converted. We’ve blogged about them in several different contexts and have them listed as a partner because they have become an intrinsic platform for our business. We probably don’t say enough good things about them.
Other coverage:
- JotSpot reincarnated as Google Sites
- Don’t call it a wiki: Google Sites finally launches
- Postscript: Rafe Needleman reconsiders, recommends avoiding “Google Sites, Not So Pretty in the Morning“
- JotSpot reborn: Google launches Google Sites for businesses to create websites in the cloud
- JotSpot Born Again as Google Sites, the Wiki-less Wiki
- Postscript March 7 (emphasis added): David Coleman says Bring Back JotSpot “I realize that Google had to re-write much of JotSpot over the last 16 months (at least we hope that is what they were doing) to make it fit with the Google architecture, but in the re-write they not only lost a lot of functionality, but many of the functions that are available either don’t work or don’t meet the usual Google intuitive UI standards.”