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JotSpot Relaunches as Google Sites, Offers Similar Wiki-Like Collaboration
Posted by Kevin Purdy at 12:00 AM on February 29, 2008
Google has unveiled the results of their purchase of JotSpot—the free collaboration tool you could once use to make wiki-like collaboration pages and organize your family—and while the offerings are somewhat slim at this point, it's looking like a promising addition to the Google Apps suite (both free and premium). You can set up Sites to create pages that only users with email addresses on a certain domain can use, or have your page open to edits or viewing by anyone. Each Sites account gets 10 GB of storage, and importing data and tools from other Google services, like group calendars, spreadsheets, Picasa slideshows, and the like, is pretty streamlined. Google Sites is free to use, and requires a sign-up with a non-Gmail email address.
Tags: collaboration | collaboration tools | google | top | wiki
Comments (AU Comments · US Comments)
There are currently no AU comments for this post.
holymogwai
Posted 2:41 AM 29/2/08
Looks like they also disable things like javascript...surprise surpise.
holymogwai
holymogwai
Posted 2:41 AM 29/2/08
Nevermind, it showed up.
Looks like you can use this for an outsite web page instead of just a collaboration tool (if you dont let anyone else have edit permissions). I just wish you could create your own theme.
holymogwai
holymogwai
Posted 2:41 AM 29/2/08
Is it up yet? Checked my Google Apps control panel and still dont see it.
holymogwai
Webran61
Posted 3:56 AM 29/2/08
I registered 10 minutes ago using my university email address.
Now I'm waiting on the elusive confirmation email.
Webran61
MEoip
Posted 3:56 AM 29/2/08
When will it come to those of use who don't feel like buying / owning a domain name? I thought this would replace pages for everyone.
MEoip
jcamson
Posted 3:56 AM 29/2/08
Nevermind, it also showed up for me. Looks pretty straightforward.
jcamson
jcamson
Posted 3:56 AM 29/2/08
@holymogwai: How did you get it up and running? I'me on a premiere account and I have signed in and out to no avail. I also have the "give me Google services ASAP" setting enabled.
jcamson
ogremustcrush
Posted 3:56 AM 29/2/08
You know, this actually be a good replacment for onenote on nix. It just needs the navigation bars to automatically update with new pages showing the sitemap. A lot of the functionality is there.
ogremustcrush
Morton Fox
Posted 5:31 AM 29/2/08
I added Google Sites to my domain yesterday. 10GB is a lot more storage than Google Pages.
Morton Fox
radfaraf
Posted 5:31 AM 29/2/08
I'm not pleased that I can't attempt to try this out because my college email address was disabled about a year after I graduated.
radfaraf
Michael_Pastore
Posted 5:57 AM 29/2/08
Kevin, yes, it's "thin" -- but for a 1.0 version, it's very nice: everything you need to set up a wiki-like website is right there for you, free. A nice feature is that you can open it up to the world to view, or just to a selected group of colleagues with the same domain name in the last part of their email. ... In future versions I would like to see a wider variety of skins (although you can tweak the ones provided); and a better help and FAQ section. One key question that I could not find an answer for: when you register with an email from your domain name (for example: yourName@yourDomainName.com), does Google do any voodoo to your domain name: change DNS settings, and so on? ... The new Microsoft OfficeLive gives you a lot more website (for the same free price), but I'm too loyal to Google to ever switch back.
Michael_Pastore
edythemighty
Posted 7:12 AM 29/2/08
@Michael_Pastore - It shouldn't change any settings as far as I know, although you could change them yourself to have a subdomain redirect to it as with the other Google Apps...
@Ryan Anderson - Have you enabled the option to try new features before anyone else?
edythemighty
Ryan Anderson
Posted 7:12 AM 29/2/08
How sad... I don't seem to have access to it yet. I guess they're phasing it in?
Ryan Anderson
Penfold007
Posted 8:17 AM 29/2/08
Anyone know how this stacks up against SocialText? My company has been using ST for a while and I wonder whether it's worth it to migrate.
Penfold007
John David
Posted 6:05 PM 29/2/08
I wish it was more wiki-like. You can't create links to new pages using wiki syntax. You have to save your page; Create a new page; Save THAT page and then edit the first page to add a link to page two. That's a lot of unnecessary work.
John David
holymogwai
Posted 12:55 AM 1/3/08
@radfaraf: You dont need one. Just a non-gmail address.
holymogwai
David Noble
Posted 8:56 AM 3/3/08
As a wiki, it's not that great.
As a part of Google Apps, it opens up some interesting new possibilities. Especially when you start adding Google Gadgets to a page.
David Noble
SorenG
Posted 8:56 AM 3/3/08
It only took them something like 16 months. Strange that the would not take my gmail address on registering, had to use my work one instead. Odd.
SorenG
SorenG
Posted 8:56 AM 3/3/08
Interesting.
SorenG
cbeck747
Posted 7:17 AM 8/3/08
@gglo: I have that same complaint. I haven't researched it since it hasn't bubbled up to the top of my todo's but it is annoying.
Trying to be professional and end up advertising for google... who definitely doesn't need it.
I hope there is a solution...
cbeck747
gglo
Posted 7:17 AM 8/3/08
i was trying to create a google sites named wiki ...and it gave me a forbidden 403 error .did this happen to anyone else? another question i have is for those using google apps for your domain, ... i know that i can have cname aliases like mail, start , sites etc. and it works too. but when i type in mail.mydomain.com it goes to mail.google.com/a/mydomain or for start it goes to partnerpage.google.com/mydomain etc. is there any way i can prevent this from showing in the address bar..i want only mail.mydomain to appear in the address bar/....is this possible?
gglo