Filling out its portfolio of online office applications, Google has acquired wiki company JotSpot for an undisclosed amount.
Co-founder Joe Kraus (pictured here) says he “couldn’t be more excited,” and we can understand, given his rocky ride several years ago at search engine Excite.
Kraus had been badly burned, and we could sense in Joe an intense, but quiet determination while building Jot that he was going to do this one right.
Way back in 1993, Kraus was 23 and a senior at Stanford, when he and five others co-founded Excite. Excite went public and was valued at $183 million in 1996, and was acquired AtHome in 1999 for $6.5 billion in stock. Pretty giddy times.
But then things went poof. ExciteAtHome imploded when the Bubble burst, after some major strategic and management blunders, let alone the market problems — many of them out of Kraus’ control. It shut down, and its assets sold for $10 million.
We don’t know how much Jot was sold for, and it’s probably not for much, but was almost assuredly for a profit — otherwise Kraus wouldn’t have sold. Kraus had raised more than $5 million from Redpoint and Mayfield.
It is also a victory because Jot was founded in late 2003, after other wiki companies like Socialtext. Socialtext is struggling.
We’d tried various wiki software programs, and ended up selecting Jot for our internal project to launch VentureBeat this year — and even paid for it — mainly because its user interface is intuitive and friendly.
From Joe’s blog:
Tags: co:google, co:Medio, inv:Mayfield, inv:RedpointThree years ago my friend Graham Spencer and I set out to start a new company….. We brainstormed scores of ideas, debated late into the night and ultimately exchanged a mountain of email and documents. We realized we needed a tool to help us organize our thoughts or we’d quickly become overwhelmed. So Graham set up a wiki. I was hooked because it immediately changed the way we worked together. Everything was kept in one place, not locked in email threads or on different computers. We could both make changes to the same document, without having to know HTML (well, without me having to know HTML). After twenty minutes of using a wiki, I was convinced that they were like the Internet in 1993 — useful, but trapped in the land of the nerds (which both Graham and I proudly inhabit). So we set out to start JotSpot as a way to bring the power of wikis to a much broader audience.
11 Comments
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Jason M. Lemkin said:
An interesting deal. The $5m from the VCs (vs. Writely with no real VCs, e.g.) certain can impact the definition of “for a profit” . . .
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Socialtext said:
Google Acquires JotSpot, Socialtext Provides Free Migration
October 31, 2006 - 9:37pm
Socialtext, the first wiki company, announced today a free hosted wiki program for JotSpot customers following that company’s acquisition by Google. Socialtext will migrate JotSpot wiki content and provide one year of Socialtext Professional hosted wiki service to any JotSpot customer who signs up by the end of November 2006. While most JotSpot customers are small-to-midsized businesses, this offer is extended to deployments of any size.
“Our experience has been that JotSpot customers convert to Socialtext when they realize they need a real business-class wiki,” said Socialtext CEO Ross Mayfield. “We have been gaining customers since they discontinued their Appliance offering. We hear a high degree of uncertainty from users faced with a potential lag in innovation and unclear integration strategy with Google. Socialtext is ready to support you and your business during this critical time.”
Prior to the Google announcement, JotSpot discontinued support of its Appliance product, leaving Socialtext with the only proven enterprise wiki Appliance solution. Socialtext’s recently release 2.0 version consistently beats JotSpot because it is:
* simpler and easier to use
* designed for businesses, not consumers
* a real wiki that employees actually use, not cluttered with various shallow appletsFor corporations that want even more from their wiki, Socialtext also offers a secure behind-the-firewall Appliance which can be integrated with directory, monitoring, backup, storage, search and portal architecture — ad free.
Developers who prefer Open Source instead of a proprietary development platform can download and use Socialtext Open for free — freedom included.
Get Yourself Out of a Spot
To sign up for a free migration from JotSpot and one-year subscription to Socialtext Professional, contact sales@socialtext.com.
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Startups.in/India said:
“Get Yourself Out of a Spot”
Neat. That’s quite some timely marketing from SocialText. :) -
Alan Graham said:
Hey SocialText…is this a comment or an advertisement?
I mean come on…this is hardly the place to put your full press release.
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Developers who prefer Open Source instead of a proprietary said:
Developers who prefer Open Source instead of a proprietary development platform can download and use Socialtext Open for free — freedom included.
Get Yourself Out of a Sp
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Jerod said:
If you were wondering what they meant by “socialtext is struggling” in the article, well, nothing screams *desperation* like posting your snarky, sour-grapes “press release” as a comment on a blog. That’s a quality PR machine at work right there.
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David Scott Lewis said:
Kudos, Joe. You’ve done a GREAT job with JotSpot.
But as a user of both JotSpot AND Socialtext, I have to recommend Socialtext. Of course, Google $$$ may change things in favor of JotSpot, but for now, Socialtext is a better service.
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Ross Mayfield said:
The user who used the name Socialtext and pasted the press release is not anyone associated with our company to my knowledge. We know how to use blog comments appropriately.
Jerod, you might have posted it pretending you were with us, for all we and I know.
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HelloWorld said:
Peace people
We love you
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bsldtxfzea said:
Hello! Good Site! Thanks you! rcjnpaviran
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