Social Networking in Wikis

Wow! This social networking thing is going crazy! Even wikis are adding social networking tools.

This week I went looking for new social networking tools and found that a company called Wetpaint (which offers free wikis to people) are starting to take steps to provide people with “fully-functional social networks with the release of several new features that are typically found on social networking sites (Nicole).” What once was only used as a resource for enterprise solutions is now siding more towards feeds which will allow users to communicate with one another more easily. They plan to place this right in their dashboard making it hard to resist talking to others when they are online.

Another thing they are doing is adding in a “friends invite option” so people can invite others into their wikis. This is supposedly so that the friends can help contribute to the wiki the user is currently working on at the time.

An option they will provide is a compliments area so friends and foes alike can tell a wiki writer if they like it or not. This is useful from the standpoint that if one is not the authority on a subject and they insist on writing about it, an authority could come in and straighten out any misgivings the original writer may have had. Of course they hope this will be a place where people can encourage others so wikis become more popular, but I am not sure that is all that will happen.

A lot of people are asking if the social networking area is really necessary for wikis. I am just getting familiar with wikis within this past year, so I really can’t give my solid opinion of whether it is a good or bad thing. However, generally speaking from what I do know, I don’t see that it could hurt. It is at least worth trying, right?

Here's the link to the article