wikiSquared

Congress Abandons WikiConstitution

This just in...

WASHINGTON, DC—Congress scrapped the open-source, open-edit, online version of the Constitution Monday, only two months after it went live. "The idea seemed to dovetail perfectly with our tradition of democratic participation," Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid said. "But when so-called 'contributors' began loading it down with profanity, pornography, ASCII art, and mandatory-assault-rifle-ownership amendments, we thought it might be best to cancel the project." Congress intends to restore the Constitution to its pre-Wiki format as soon as an unadulterated copy of the document can be found.

September 28, 2005 | Issue 41•39 -- The Onion: America's Finest News Source

When The Onion starts goofing on wikis, maybe its a sign that these online environments are *starting* to pop up on our mental radar screens.

If we're all so damned smart, how come we're not rich?

In my days as a management consultant, the cynical comment we'd throw back and forth was "money doesn't talk -- it screams!" If there's any single success metric for the future of wikis, it's the simple one of money.

Ross Mayfield's Palo Alto, CA, company, SocialText, is a pioneer in offering wikis and blogs to organizations. As proof of this is the recent announcement of funding by SAP.

SocialText has continually and successfully offered a line of products that's cracked one of the hardest markets imaginable -- that of button-down corporate America. Ross Mayfield and his company should be applauded not only for winning this round of venture financing but also for attracting the attention of a global leader in software.

We can all hope this is an inflection point that suggests wikis are about to receive more attention, more respect, and yes, more investors...

-----     Quoting from the press release:    

"Socialtext announced on Friday an $850,000 investment from business software giant SAP.*     Wiki software developer Socialtext received the investment from the German company's venture arm, SAP Ventures as part of its second round of funding. The round raised a total of $4 million, with participation from Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Omidyar Network and University Venture Fund as well."