JotSpot 2.0 is a "wiki" computer application that enables people to make joint calendars, spreadsheets, photo galleries and virtual filing cabinets, said company founder Joe Kraus.

The term "wiki" was inspired by the Hawaiian "wiki-wiki," which translates into "very quick," and is used in Internet parlance to a site that allows visitors to make changes to content, with the popular online Wikipedia encyclopedia the seminal example.

"The most powerful revolutions in technology in general have been do-it-yourself revolutions," Kraus told AFP.

Kraus cited the societal embrace of desktop computers, then self publishing, and Podcasting, which he described as do-it-yourself radio.

"There is a new revolution -- allowing a space online where someone can essentially build an application and do something."

Wikis have been an increasingly popular venue for cyber-collaboration focused mainly on documents or other texts built by visitor input.

The JotSpot application was crafted to let online visitors go past just writing to actually working together on tasks as if they were in a conference room or at the same computer, Kraus said.

"The new features in the JotSpot wiki are very well implemented, and are a huge leap forward in functionality over traditional wikis," said Eric Matson, quality assurance director at customized products website Zazzle.

"We're looking forward to consolidating our existing, outdated wiki tools onto one platform powered by JotSpot."

Such sharing of applications on networks has been limited to companies that could afford technical support departments to maintain the hardware and the software, according to Kraus.

JotSpot makes the option available to families, school groups, or small businesses and others without big business budgets, according to the Palo Alto, California, pioneer in wiki applications.

"Wiki market evolution is accelerating," research director Peter O'Kelly of Burton Group Collaboration and Content Strategies service said in a statement.

"Incorporating familiar mainstream computing concepts and tools ... and making them readily accessible in 'the wiki way' will lead to widespread wiki adoption in organizations of all types and sizes."

JotSpot designed the wiki so that technologically-challenged users would be able to easily design pages with features such as slide shows, website links, and videos imported from sites such as YouTube.

"The whole goal was to take wikis out of the land of the nerds," Kraus said. "They are so useful, but they have been trapped. I say that, and I'm a nerd."

JotSpot's new application will range in price from 9.95 dollars monthly for 10 users and 100 web pages to 199.95 dollars monthly for unlimited users and pages, the company said.

It will be free for wikis with fewer than five users and 10 pages, Kraus said.

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