Since the very promising startup, JotSpot was devoured and (in my opinion) made less approachable by Google (as Google Sites), I’ve been searching for a powerful, user-friendly, feature-rich wiki capability. I had hoped to find a product or service that, like JotSpot (R.I.P.), was open to a vibrant developer community, which would ensure a steady stream of improvements and extensions. Unlike JotSpot, I wanted a solution that could be implemented not only as a turnkey web service, but also as a locally served wiki environment. I think I have found a very promising candidate.

I’ve been experimenting with MindTouch’s Deki Wiki, which runs in a virtualized mode. It’s an impressive product that offers a lot of capability for collaborative or individual content management. I see wikis as a powerful tools for knowledgebase construction and maintenance. I was delighted to receive a notification of an ad-free, hosted version of Deki Wiki, in two packages. The free package includes 100MB of storage and all the features provided with the Pro version ($99 per year), except for the custom HTML Area, which accommodates custom ad services.

In practice, the free account should be able to dish up content that exceeds 100MB because you can use Google, Flickr, Yahoo, and other APIs to integrate content from those services into your pages. For example, the images displayed on your Deki Wiki can actually reside in your (or someone else’s) Flickr account, therefore not counting against your 100MB quota.

Some of the other features of the hosted Deki Wiki packages include

  • CSS Editing for creating custom site themes
  • Wiki can be public (open) or private (accounts with passwords)
  • Ability to restrict access or edit privileges for hierarchies and pages (spaces)
  • Integration with Yahoo!, Windows Live, Google, Flickr, WidgetBox, YouTube , and other web services
  • Ability to create and share application and/or content mashups
  • Support for several languages, including Spanish, Russian, German, Dutch, French, Portuguese

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