Wetpaint, PBwiki, and Wikispaces

This semester, I’ve been using Wetpaint and PBwikis for my classes, and I have two Wikispaces wikis that I’m using for other professional endeavors. I decided it was time to compare and contrast them:

Features	Wetpaint	PBwiki (1.0)	Wikispaces
My Wikis	Red Rocks Classes ENGL 112	ENG 131 LIT 127	4R x T Renaissance Woman
Cost	Free Professional services available for fee	Free for basic services $99.50/yr for silver plan $249.50/yr for gold plan $999.50/yr for platinum plan Charge per user per month for businesses	Free for basic services $5/mo or $50/yr for plus $20/mo or $200/yr for super $100/mo or $1000/yr for private label
Ads	Removed upon request for educational wikis	None for educational wikis	Ads on free wikis
Styles	24 styles available	5 skins available	4 themes available, which may be customized but knowledge of HTML and CSS required
Nav Bar	Generated automatically Pages can be moved easily Expandable	Must be created	Must be created Not all editing features work well in navigation bar (for example, bullets, bold, code)
Editing	Undo/redo Text formatting Bullets Indenting/reverse Links Images Tables Spellcheck Works very well	Copy/paste Text formatting Indent/reverse Bullets Spellcheck Links Images Table Horizontal rule Insert plugin Source AttachmentsFinicky, especially links in table	Bold, italics, underlining Font color and style (one button) Bullets Horizontal rule Links File insertion Table Special characters CodeText and visual editors floating at top of monitor, preview option, finicky
Widgets	YouTube Google Video Vizu Poll RSS feeds Google Calendar Photobucket Imeem Music Zeemaps Meebo Messaging Gabbly Chat Other (works for Box.net and Slideshare)	Productivity Calendar Plan an event Any Google Gadget Address link Spreadsheet Stock chart PBwiki Magic Equation HTML Recent Changes Recent Visitors Table of Contents # of visitors Chat Photos Bubbleshare Slide Video, including YouTube	Wikispaces applications (TOC, RSS, tag cloud, etc.) Video Audio Calendar Spreadsheet Document Polls RSS feds Chat and IM Slideshow Map Bookmark Other HTML
File Storage	Attachments: limit of 40, each no larger than 2 MB (80 MB)	10 MB for free account 1 GB for silver 2 GB for gold 5 GB for platinum	2 GB for free account 2 GB for plus 5 GB for super 40 GB for private label
Backup	HTML to a zip file	.zip	Windows .zip and Unix .tgz Backup and export as HTML
Additional Features	Discussion threads Individual profile pages Internal message system Templates What’s New Members To-Dos Invitation management	PBwiki 2.0 transition Invite key RSS and Atom feeds Notifications Traffic and statistics	Invitations Space badges Statistics Templates Recent Changes

I really like Wetpaint the best, primarily because of the following:

• automatically generated navigation bar
• social networking features
• easy-to-use editor
• widgets for the services I use (like SlideShare)

The primary disadvantage is the limited amount of file storage (attachments). However, that’s easily overcome by embedding or linking to Box.net folders.

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Also posted at 4R x T.

Group Collaboration the Wiki Way

A wiki, according to that most famous wiki, Wikipedia, is a web application that allows multiple editors to add, remove, and edit content. In short, they are great tools for group collaborations in which many people need to co-create documents.

There are quite a few (read, tons!) of wikis*. Some are quite easy to use (e.g., PBWiki, Wikispaces, and Stikipad) and others are a bit more challenging (e.g., Wikispot, Wikidot, and @Wiki). Some have just a few basic features (basic if you are used to high-powered wikis such as those that use media wiki); others are quite robust and include things like basic content management features (Cospire comes to mind) or include a blog (e.g., Netcipia)

So, how do you choose? Well, ask yourself a few basic questions:

1. Is this a brief wiki encounter or do you have long-term plans? If this is just a small or short-lived project, go with PBWiki, Wikispaces, or Stikipad. Otherwise, invest a bit of time to learn Wikispot, Wikidot, or @Wiki because they have much more robust management features.
2. Are your users tech-savvy or do they just need a simple tool to get the job done? If they’re not particularly tech-savvy, go with PBWiki or Wikispaces. They’re more friendly to use.
3. Do you want to be able to embed video, audio, and some widgets? If so, go with any of the ones listed below except Stikipad.

*Note: For this post, I’m only writing about wikis that have free hosting services and are not specialized (e.g. Google Docs); however, if you’re the intrepid type, you can always go the host-your-own route – see the Wiki Matrix to find something that works for you.

Try ‘em Out
In order to really know which wiki works for you, you have to each one for a test spin. Of course, some folks don’t like to create all those new accounts to find just the right tool – that’s why you read this blog, right? Anyway, I’ve gone ahead and created several different wikis for you to test out without (in most cases) having to create an account! All of them are related to using wikis in higher education, so be prepared to write down an idea or two! Thanks!

• PBWiki (password – wihe-guest)
• Stikipad
• Wikispaces
• Wikispot
• Wikidot
• Netcipia
• Cospire (must create login to edit)

Further resources

• Wiki Matrix – A great tool to help you compare wikis and narrow down the field so you can find the wiki that is most suitable for your needs.

• 7 Things You Should Know About Wikis – an EDUCAUSE article that gives a nice summary about wikis.

• Wiki in Education – A list of articles written about wikis and their use in education.