33 Wikis: #18 -- ProductWiki

This is the eighteenth installment in "33 Wikis," a close look at best practices in wiki-based collaboration. Each day -- for 33 days -- we look at one wiki and briefly describe what the wiki is for, why we like it, and what we all can learn from it. If you want to nominate a wiki, please let us know. On day 34 we will post a public wiki featuring info on all nominees.

What this wiki is for: The first product catalog powered by wiki technology, ProductWiki is "a community of people sharing their knowledge and experience about the consumer products and services."

Why we like it: Three Canadian engineers (Amanie Ismail, Omar Ismail, and Erik Kalviainen) found inspiration in Wikipedia to build their own platform, and one that's tailored to meet the demands of a robust online catalog. The result is a well-designed, ad-supported, one-of-a-kind service that's targeting a very large and competitive market sector (by the way, ProductWiki is in no way affiliated with an Amazon project with a similar name). One critic recently noted that ProductWiki it does not differ in any significant way services like Epinions, except for the dubious capability that it offers its users to edit the contributions of others. Our take: the risks are greater, but the open-edit capability is a good differentiator for ProductWiki, which has the agenda of "keeping the information honest." We also like the look and feel of the site -- clean, elegant, functional, with a few light Web 2.0-ish features built in.

What we all can learn from it: We believe that ProductWiki points the way that many consumer-facing sites will go, integrating wiki technology into their services. While the DIY nature of pre-built wiki platforms will continue to appeal to most people, a number of businesses will build their own tools, or -- as the emerging Amazon wiki story foretells -- build wiki technology into current Web-based offerings.