The Wiki has become the collaborative writing tool of Web 2.0. Wikipedia and its related properties have lead the charge, and behind them have come a slew of competing and complementary products. Unfortunately for most, very few of these products had enough innovative new features to live up to MediaWiki’s (the engine behind Wikipedia) fame.

Recently, I have come across what I feel is the next big step in Wiki. Instead of relying exclusively on text, Steve Bjorg and Aaron Fulkerson are turning the Wiki into a web services platform. I had a chance to chat with both of them and they explained the newest iteration on their Deki Wiki platform, “Hayes”.

Steve And Aaron

Steve and Aaron

Steve Bjorg is an ex-Microsoft employee who worked in social applications and distributed computing. More specifically, he worked in Advanced Strategies and Policies. Aaron Fulkerson has worked in communities both offline and online. He founded a 15 person consulting firm and met Steve while also working at Microsoft in Advanced Strategies and Policies.

What is “Hayes”

Thanks for participating guys. First, can you give us a rundown of some of the new features in Hayes. We have all seen MediaWiki and its related products, tell me what puts Deki Wiki a cut above the rest.

Aaron:

Wow. To be honest there is a lot to differentiate us. Here is a short list of how we’re different with added to denote new features:

We store in XHTML and have a really nice WYSIWYG. There is no wikitext anywhere. Wikitext is non-standard. To my knowledge we’re the only player that does this.

Deki Wiki is a platform not a personal use tool or application. This means, among other things, extensibility.

Deki Wiki’s user experience is light years ahead of any other. Specifically, our editor, content hierarchies, menus, link dialogs, etc. To test this, create a page using Deki Wiki add some formatted text, attach an image, embed a video. Then try to do this with another wiki. Our software is often called “fun to use” while other, even commercial offerings, in this space are often called crude or geeky.

  • File versioning
  • File indexing for search
  • Tagging: chrono-tagging, tag categories
  • LDAP/AD integration—you can use existing user directory and authentication services
  • Multiple skinning support and ease of customization.
  • Sophisticated permissioning of pages, groups, hierarchies, spaces. Most commercial offerings still don’t provide page-level permissioning and user groups. We do.
  • Page-level attachments and image gallery. Strangely most other offerings don’t allow page-level attachments. This tends to confuse users.
  • Complete (bi-directional) API. This allows programmers to add wiki capabilities to their existing applications.
  • Rich media support
  • And much more…

I don’t think that I am alone in saying that the lack of Wiki-text and the ability to integrate Wiki capability into external applications is exciting in and of itself. I have had several projects which would have been enhanced with Wiki-like features that were substantially harder because of the sheer amount of time it takes to get a package like MediaWiki properly integrated.

Deki Wiki Extensions

Explain Deki Wiki Extensions. I simply love the idea of being able to integrate other data services into my Wiki. It would be great if you could give us a practical example of its use.

Aaron:

[Some] interesting scenarios, I believe are:

1). A programmer writes a chart and graphs application in the language of their choosing and hosts it on a server. Any server that is Internet addressable will do. The programmer provides a web service for their application. A Deki Wiki administrator registers the web service in the Deki Wiki control panel, names the application and supplies a list of allowed features. An end user can now use this as if it were part of Deki Wiki even though it’s an external application running on a completely different computer.

2) A Deki Wiki administrator has content in many databases. They register these with Deki Wiki and name them, which lets end users present the contents of these databases in the wiki. Better yet, they can also use the aforementioned chart and graphs application to visualize the data in new ways.

There are so many ways that a creative content maker could use Deki Wiki as a mashup engine. This is a truly powerful concept that I wish I would see more of.

Wiki Technology

How do you feel Wiki technology is changing the way that web services are presented? Ideally, how would you like to see a platform like your own used in 5 years?

Steve:

Of course, it’s hard to predict what will happen in 5 years, even 2 is a long time! That said, what makes wikis unique is their ability to tap into the wisdom of crowds. Some of us are great writers, while others are more technical or artistic. With wikis, you can combine the best talents, benefiting from the collective skill set. Now, with a service-oriented wiki like Deki Wiki, you get these same benefits but at the application and services level. Users can complement their individual knowledge of power-tools to create something that is greater than the sum of the parts. And that’s where wikis will continue to lead in innovation. Today, wikis are already powerful tools for sharing knowledge, but with Deki Wiki, they can now be a canvas for mixing content from virtually any source! This is really exciting stuff!

Aaron:

We’re seeing the realization of the promise of web-services that some influential people (Bill Gates, Bezos, O’Reilly) have been talking about for some time now. This is the notion that there will be clouds of web-services developers can employ to build applications from. This is today. The number of services is growing explosively. Deki Wiki is making it possible for non-technical end users to benefit from these services. This is our goal. This is what we’re achieving and will continue to improve upon. The wiki is perhaps the best metaphor for making these tools accessible to non-technical end users in a secure manner.

The “Entrepreneur” Question

I try to ask all of the entrepreneurs that I interview this. As entrepreneurs, do you have any advice for people who have an idea but just don’t know where to start or how to get it off the ground?

Steve:

This might sound clichéd, but in the end it comes down to this: just do it! Trust your instincts and surround yourself with your smartest friends and go for it!

Aaron:

Don’t wait to release. Get it out there early, don’t be afraid to be embarrassed. We learned this lesson the hard way. If you look at the current landscape of “Web 2.0”, “Enterprise 2.0”, or “Media 2.0” apps, I believe we fit in each category, those who are most well known are often the least interesting, but it’s because the creators put it out there quickly, very early, and talked about it lots.

Web 2.0 Roundup

You can find out more about this product by visiting the official MindTouch website, or you can contact Steve and Aaron directly here.

If you are interested in learning more about Deki Wiki “Hayes” you can also find resources here, and if you just want to learn more about these two interesting gentlemen, take a look at their official corporate bios.

[Be sure to subscribe to the RSS feed before leaving.]

  • del.icio.us
  • Digg
  • StumbleUpon
  • Reddit
  • Fark
  • Mixx
  • Propeller
  • TwitThis