MindTouch and PBWiki get big updates

MindTouch is one of my favourite wikis – or it was until it became much more than a wiki, more of a development environment with a wiki at the core. It’s still one of my favourites, not least because its CEO, the ebullient Aaron Roe Fulkerson is such a lovable and crazy chap. Plus Mindtouch is open source which is all goodness. Anyhoo…

My colleague Oliver Marks has the detailed breakdown and a cool video to look at but in summary:

This bi-directional messaging and publishing capability pushes out notification of updates to content and can be calibrated by users. Information about content updates can be delivered by email, mobile devices, or even Twitter and WordPress blogs. Users can now choose to receive an email that notifies them when a specific page changes, or when certain files are revised, or when new users are added to the system. For example, with a WordPress plug-in, users can create a Wordpress blog page, which then automatically posts the same content to MindTouch 2009.

This blog runs on WP so that kind of functionality is really useful. There’s a handful of relatively minor editing and control updates – check out Oliver’s post, it’s all there.

Meanwhile over at PBWiki – a tool I am currently experimenting with for an upcoming project and another of my favorites, in large measure because Chris Yeh, the marketing supremo, really knows how to approach folk like myself – has had four major updates rolled into one:

As a wiki grows, it becomes increasingly difficult to find and track the pages and files that matter most to you. For the last several months, we’ve been researching and designing a new way to organize and share information on your wiki.

Starred pages- Bookmark all important wiki pages and create a personal list of information that is important to you.

Selective Notifications- Tailor notifications to monitor only your starred pages. Stay up to date, automatically and avoid notification overload.

Navigator- Quickly navigate to any folder, and browse all pages on your wiki. The Navigator also gives you a quick way to view your Starred Pages.

Send a link- Tell other members of your team that you’ve updated the workspace, or to call them to review, comment, or edit the page.

Notifications are similar to what MindTouch has deployed and as the Daily Peanut blog says – it is a killer feature to have. Notifications are the kind of thing that keep adminstrators happy – they can easily keep tabs on what’s going on.

Wikis have come a long way on the last three years. They are starting to emerge as a credible service that could serve practitioners extremely well, especially in the knowledge management arena. While there are plenty to choose from, each with its own take on the topic, MindTouch and PBWiki are definitely up there with the best in business class services.

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