WebProNews » JotSpot

Google Sites: JotSpot Returns, Joins Apps

WebProNews Staff — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 11:03:33 +0000

Google wiki acquisition, JotSpot, returned to public view as part of Google Apps, with a new name and 10GB storage for free accounts.

News of Google’s JotSpot purchase haunted the Internet on Halloween in 2006. Then, like the best candies in the trick-or-treat bag, it vanished from public view aside from JotSpot’s existing userbase.

Today, a trip to Google Apps reveals the return of JotSpot. The clever name had to be erased, a sacrifice to the gods of uniform corporate branding. JotSpot goes forward as Google Sites.

The functionality of Google Sites fits in with the other Apps services. Sites has a minimal learning curve, without having to muck about with icky HTML code to create a page. Several templates will get the Sites user up and running.

Through permission controls, access to viewing and editing Sites may be given to a few people or an organization. Any Sites pages may be opened to the world, in true wiki fashion.

With any change to Apps comes the perquisite Microsoft-killer commentary. The NYT Bits Blog called it “a rival to Microsoft’s SharePoint.”
Scott Johnston, former VP of JotSpot product development and a Google staffer since October 2006, told the Michigan audience that JotSpot would re-emerge in 2008.

Your Search Advisor blogger Andrew Miller cited some of the questions and answers Johnston addressed during the event. Among them, JotSpot will feature significantly in Google’s software as a service strategy:

Google Sites: Scheduled to be launched sometime next year (2008), Google Sites will expand upon the Google Page Creator already offered within Apps. Based on JotSpot collaboration tools, Sites will allow business to set up intranets, project management tracking, customer extranets, and any number of custom sites based on multi-user collaboration.

Johnston also noted the integration of GrandCentral, a Google acquisition that centralizes multiple phones into one number, into the forthcoming Google Sites. He declined to cite a timetable, but said it was a “huge priority” for Google.

follow me on Twitter

Google Wiki May Arrive Today

WebProNews Staff — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 11:30:12 +0000

The start of the Office 2.0 conference in San Francisco could be the fashionable choice for Google to unveil the product formerly known as Jotspot in its Google-icious form.

Google’s most ardent followers have been chattering online about the possible public opening of Jotspot, the wiki company Google picked up in October 2006. The latest rumors focus on a previously announced move to being a service on Google Apps.

Tony Ruscoe cited one of his commenters at Google Blogoscoped in noting the Jotspot service now appears in the list of Google Apps services codes:

anyone with a domain hosted with Google Apps who isn

Web 2.0 Expo: Built to Last

Pat McCarthy — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 17:13:59 +0000

Yesterday at Web 2.0 Expo one of the main keynote sessions was the “Built to Last” Panel which consisted of John Battelle asking various questions to a few entrepreneurs who have built companies that have sold or were worth selling. The participants in the session:

John Battelle – FM Publishing (moderator)
Mena Trott – Six Apart
Jay Adelson – Digg
Joe Kraus – Jotspot/Google

The following is a paraphrasing of the conversation, so don’t quote me on it.

John: Joe and I play poker, he’s going to Las Vegas this weekend. Joe founded Excite and rode it through the boom and bust, and then founded Jotspot and sold that to Google recently. Mena and Six Apart came to a point to decide whether it was built to last, or built to sell. And Jay, Digg was on the cover of Businessweek, acquirers came calling, but it didn’t happen.

John: What does built to last mean to all of you?

Joe: Entrepreneurs have to decide between success and control. It can really focus where you go. Are you building a company for the long term, or just a product to sell to another company? Funding is another question. If you’re built to sell, you actually want to take less money. The more money you take the harder it is to sell at a good return.

Mena – All those things Joe said have entered our minds. Control was something I was willing to give up because I knew I couldn’t get the company to the point I wanted without help. We’ve always felt we had control over the years, although we’ve given up a lot of control to others with titles and such.

Jay – Digg was something that was born of a passion with a specific goal. A lot of the ideas you come along are components of business models. We clearly went at it with profitability in mind. Digg’s experience has always been that focus. Although even if you do get to profit, aren’t you a better target in the long run?

John: I should disclose that my company FM represents Digg, Six Apart, and we all partner with Google. We couldn’t find a panel that fit this subject where that wasn’t the case.

John: How much pressure is there to sell? When you want to focus on building a profitable business, are there are a lot of pressures from employees and others to sell?

Joe: With Jotspot I felt like I had convinced 28 people to leave their jobs and opportunities to follow me. So there was pressure to me to get these people a good return on their time and efforts. From the VC point of view, most of the VCs don’t want to sell. The entrepreneur has 100% of their equity in one company, but for a VC you’re just a part of their portfolio. They expect most companies to fail and make their money from the big successes. So selling early on the VCs don’t want to sell because they don’t want make 5x, they want to make 100x. The entrepreneur wants to sell to make sure their 100% equity gets positive, so there is tension there.

John: Mena, selling for 50M is rare air, selling for 100M is even rarer air, and selling for YouTube money is even more rare. Do you feel a pressure or distraction?

Mena: I guess a little distraction, but we’ve been around for 6-7 years, and it’s a different acquisition market all the time. We don’t think about being the next YouTube, we think about achieving our company goals. We have 140 people, it’s not something easy to sell. We care about all those people so it’s complicated. It doesn’t interfere to our day to day work.

John: There was a period of distraction last fall right Jay?

Jay: Sure, with Digg last fall the buzz really hit. The Businessweek cover created a lot of calls, big media companies wanted to sniff around. They say they want to overpay, but you don’t know. We came up with a policy that we were going to execute, but the crazy numbers started to pop up and you start to think that you can give them a day or two to discuss it with us. That ends up taking a lot of time. It becomes a real distraction, and you have to bring everyone back to reality about this is who you are, and unless you really think that the acquiring company is going to execute it better than you are, we have to keep executing.

John: Do you guys have a perfect company in mind to acquire you?

Joe: With Google it was the right one because it’s a nerd paradise and I’m a nerd who had 28 other nerds working with him. Entrepreneurs are optimists, and so there are a lot of optimists in Silicon Valley. But Google was just really the right one at the right time for us. I think when I was operating I didn’t think about who the perfect partner would be. I knew what return we needed to hit for our investors and partners so there are companies that can hit that range.

Mena: I can tell you I have a list of who I wouldn’t want to be acquired by. Not so much on who I’d like.

Jay: You have to forget about the YouTube thing, and just focus on reality and what you can do.

Mena: There is a lot of pressure from family. We get newspaper clippings from our family asking when the big deal is going to happen to us?

Jay: It also really matters who you’re working with and owned by. If Digg was owned by the wrong company, it would really put into question the fairness in our algorithm.

Mena: Yes, we have the ability to partner with anyone as an independent company which makes our product better.

John: Is the Web 2.0 golden era over? Do you have to build bigger companies now to succeed?

Mena: We have a bunch of people because we have four product units which really spreads you out. I don’t know if the golden era is over, but we can’t really go back.

John: How many open jobs do you have at Digg?

Jay: Probably about 10, which will get us to 35. I’ve often been wrong about what it takes to get stuff done. I can see so many different things we can do, focusing on other categories, going international with news, etc.

John: When you joined Google did the number of employees on your project change?

Joe: It didn’t change, our non-engineers went to sales and marketing, and our core engineering group stayed together.

John: What are you going to do there?

Joe: Avoids question….Google has a lot going in the in the Web office space and that Jotspot fits into those goals.

Comments

Google Buys JotSpot

Nathan Weinberg — Thu, 02 Nov 2006 19:13:54 +0000

Joe Kraus of JotSpot announces on the official Google blog that Google has acquired them.

JotSpot’s wiki software will likely join Google’s Apps For Your Domain and maybe even Docs & Spreadsheets, as the post alludes to. Sign ups for JotSpot have been closed, so get on the wait list before the other 50 million people do.

Not only does Google get Kraus and Graham Spencer, co-founders of popular Web 1.0 search engine Excite, they also get a really great domain name in jot.com.

Funny, but in May there was a rumor Yahoo had bought them.

Nothing personal, but can we stop this kind of stuff? Please don’t write something awful in your blog post, like Jotoogle or GoogSpot. When has Google ever resorted to such awful naming conventions? They didn’t call Keyhole “Keyoogle” or “Googhole”, or announce that YouTube would be GoogTube. Google has better sense than that, even if they did name their document package after a sex fetish.

Comments

Tag:

Add to Del.icio.us | Digg | Yahoo! My Web | Furl

Bookmark WebProNews:

Nathan Weinberg writes the popular InsideGoogle blog, offering the latest news and insights about Google and search engines.
Visit the InsideGoogle blog.

Google Aquires JotSpot

Andrew Goodman — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 20:25:31 +0000

They’ve done it again, this time with a wiki collaboration product.

Google just acquired JotSpot. And have announced the product will now be free.

The likelihood that I will try out JotSpot has just increased.

But to say that will affect the pricing power of other players in the wiki space… that would clearly be premature.

(Self-censoring, pre-emptively counterintuitive post of the day…)

Comments

Tag:

Add to Del.icio.us | Digg | Furl

Bookmark WebProNews:

Andrew Goodman is Principal of Page Zero Media, a marketing consultancy which focuses on maximizing clients’ paid search marketing campaigns.
In 1999 Andrew co-founded Traffick.com, an acclaimed “guide to portals” which foresaw the rise of trends such as paid search and semantic analysis.

Social Media Summary

Cristian Mezei — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 19:16:48 +0000

Social Media seems to be a trend these days. Netscape just announced that they removed the whole sex channel from their website. That makes me feel a lot better actually and it’s at least a step towards a more cleaner frontpage.

From their blog:
When we first relaunched Netscape back in July, our hopes were that the Sex Channel would be a place where we could discuss issues pertaining to sex and sexuality in the 21st century’s ever-shrinking world.

We were naive.

Unfortunately, the Sex Channel became a never-ending nexus of spam and porn. So we’ve killed the channel entirely, and very soon all the old stories that were submitted to the Sex Channel will disappear and any links out on Google or elsewhere that point you to them will direct you to a page explaining this tale of dreams shattered and innocence lost..

Reddit has been aquired by Cond Nast (they own Wired and others):
We just received confirmation that Cond Nast, owner of Wired and other magazines/websites, acquired Boston-based Reddit earlier this morning, and will make the announcement later today. The price is not being disclosed.

All four reddit employees will relocate from Boston to Wired’s San Francisco office and become part of Wired Digital.

Update on Reddit (from Michael’s article):
The company has raised just $100k (all in summer 2005) and currently has an average of 70,000 daily unique visitors and 700,000 or so page views.

Google aquires JotSpot (and the update on Google’s blog):
Our first order of business is to move JotSpot to Google’s software architecture. While we’re doing so, we’ve turned off new registrations. But if you’re interested, sign up for our waitlist and we’ll keep you posted.

So who will buy Digg ?

Comments

Tag:

Add to Yahoo! My Web

Bookmark WebProNews:

Cristian Mezei is the Founder of Infomarket Network, a web marketing agency
based in Bucharest, specializing in search marketing, social media and usability/accesibility. Cristian shares some of his views in Seopedia, his personal blog.

Reddit Follows JotSpot, Takes The Cash

WebProNews Staff — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 18:32:18 +0000

While the morning discussion over tea and scones focused on Google’s acquisition of enterprise wiki software firm JotSpot, Cond Nast’s Wired Digital division received a present from its corporate masters, who purchased news-sharing site Reddit for Wired.

Reddit: Show Me The Money

Add in the buy of TravelPost.com by travel search site SideStep, and Tuesday proved to be what Valleywag airily dubbed a clusterpluck. All that was missing was Yahoo buying someone or being bought, but we can’t have everything.

For our readers who have not tried out Reddit, it’s what some would call a social media site. People suggest stories on Reddit, and other site users can give those stories an up or down vote. Fast-moving stories can appear quickly on Reddit’s main page, and that exposure brings a story some extra traffic.

That traffic is not on the same scale as the server-melting crush a front page link from Digg, Slashdot, or even Fark can level on a hapless website. Wired wants to push that scale and make Reddit a prominent part of Cond Nast’s online properties.

A Wired report said Reddit’s four full time staffers would move from Boston to San Francisco, where Wired has its headquarters. But Reddit could have been a Google stablemate for JotSpot nine months ago.

Boston Globe columnist Penelope Trunk wrote about Reddit in February 2006. During that chat, Reddit’s founders disclosed Google’s attentions to the nascent company. “By November 2005 they received a buyout offer from Google, (which they declined in favor of continuing to build the company on their own),” she wrote.

Trunk posted about the Reddit acquisition and called it a good example of knowing when to make one’s move, considering how things had changed from February to now:

At that point, Reddit was on an exciting and seemingly limitless path. Today, though, Reddit’s path as a stand alone company might be a dead end because Digg, their competitor, is now an industry standard, and Reddit is second fiddle. Taking the buyout offer now, from a premier publishing company with enthusiasm for building out Reddit, makes good sense for (Reddit founders) Ohanian and Huffman.

Kourosh Karimkhany, general manager of Wired Digital, said in the Wired report, “Our goal will be to build Reddit as an independent company by collaborating with Wired through the integration of its core technology, and by offering partnerships to allow others to do the same.”

—
Tag:

Add to Del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit | Furl

Bookmark WebProNews:

David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.

Google Gets JotSpot

Lee Odden — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 15:06:55 +0000

I just received an email from JotSpot, a wiki service provider we use. JotSpot was co founded by Joe Kraus, a name you might remember in search engine history as a founder of Excite.com

Here’s the email:
We’re writing to let you know that Google has acquired JotSpot. We believe this is great news for our users. More importantly, we want to reassure you that you’ll continue to have uninterrupted access to your account. Both Google and JotSpot are committed to supporting our customers, and we understand that users have invested a lot in our products. In the near-term, we’re focused on migrating JotSpot to Google’s systems and datacenters. We’ll work hard to make that move as seamless as possible so that customers won’t be inconvenienced.

Why is Google acquiring JotSpot?

Google shares JotSpot’s vision for helping people collaborate, share and work together online. JotSpot’s team and technology are a strong fit with existing Google products like Google Docs & Spreadsheets and Google Groups.

What does this mean for JotSpot customers?

We believe that joining Google will accelerate our team’s vision of offering users the best collaboration platform on the web. Google shares that vision and presents us with the world’s best environment for delivering on it. We’ll be taking advantage of Google’s world-class systems infrastructure and operations expertise to ensure that access to your JotSpot is fast and reliable. We can’t share any of our plans publicly just yet, but we can tell you that we’re incredibly excited about the possibilities. We can’t think of a better company to have been acquired by.

Will paying customers still be charged?

We will no longer be billing customers for the use of the service. Although you will still have use of the product at your current pricing plan, we won’t charge you anymore when your current billing cycle expires.

What about security and privacy?

Your data is yours – that doesn’t change at Google. We will continue to work to ensure the privacy and security of your data. Furthermore, Google is as committed to privacy and security as we are. Since the user information you provided to JotSpot will soon be transferred to Google as part of their acquisition of JotSpot, we want to provide you with the opportunity to retrieve your user information and cease usage of the JotSpot service before the transition. If you do not wish to continue using JotSpot, send an email to privacy@jot.com in the next sixty days and we will reply with instructions for retrieving your user information.

Answers to more frequently asked questions are available at http://www.jot.com/. If you have any other questions, please email support@jot.com.

In closing, we wanted to offer our sincere gratitude to you – our customers – for believing in us and helping us achieve success. We look forward to continuing that relationship at Google.

Best wishes,
The JotSpot Team

Wow. More Google all the time! Here’s a link to the JotSpot-Google deal FAQ.

Update: here’s the official post over at Google’s Blog.

Comments

Tag:

Add to Yahoo! My Web | Furl

Bookmark WebProNews:

Lee Odden is President and Founder of
TopRank Online Marketing, specializing in organic SEO, blog
marketing and online public relations. He’s been cited as a search
marketing expert by publications including U.S. News & World Report and
The Economist and has implemented successful search marketing programs
with top BtoB companies of all sizes. Odden shares his marketing
expertise at Online Marketing Blog offering
daily news, interviews and best practices.

Demo Of What JotSpot Sold Today

Robert Scoble — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 14:46:36 +0000

Congrats to JotSpot for selling to Google. (JotSpot is an online Office, er Wiki, suite).

One reason I have interviewed almost all the Wiki companies in my first five weeks of ScobleShow is because I sensed that the Wiki market was white hot. Why? Cause on a post a few months back my comments went crazy. Your interest predicted a deal like this. I predict others are coming.

My interview with Joe Kraus, just a couple of months ago, is here. Here is a demo of JotSpot that Joe did.

Google has definitely gotten over its “not invented here” syndrome with the purchase of YouTube and now JotSpot. They are buying audiences and best-of-breed technologies, which JotSpot definitely was.

Microsoft’s Office team should be looking at this acquisition this morning and wondering what Google is up to.

It’s pretty clear to me: Google is going where the money is.

Comments

Tag:

Add to Del.icio.us | Digg | Yahoo! My Web | Furl

Bookmark WebProNews:

Robert Scoble is the founder of the Scobleizer blog. He works as PodTech.net’s Vice President of Media Development.

Go to Scobleizer …