On the surface Socialtext seems pretty vanilla compared to other products. Yet that simplicity is a main attraction of this product; most tasks are accomplished with one or two clicks. Once inside Socialtext, however, I discovered an assortment of wiki collaboration and Weblog publishing functions.

The main dashboard, like those of other products, provides a quick summary of what’s new, specific pages that you’re watching for changes, and quick navigation to all your authorized workspaces. New users will be up and running in a few minutes.

Workspaces are created using a simple form, and a single button-press builds pages and switches to the edit mode. WYSIWYG editing eliminates knowing any wiki markup; toolbar functions include basic text formatting, tables — along with straightforward linking to other pages (free-form page titles are links), external sites, and files. Moreover, I linked to pages in other workspaces, which would be helpful when teams work on projects that may not be within their usual workspace. Copying and pasting from Word and Excel was problem-free.

I liked Socialtext’s uncommon ability to compare revisions side-by-side and to restore any previous version. For file management, this solution let me upload documents and view versions. But there’s no way to build a folder structure, which would be a big help in organizing a lot of files.

To make finding information easier, I assigned tags to build virtual categories. These markers, along with advanced search of keyword or page title, helped me pinpoint pages of interest.

The Weblog element provides a customary listing of recent posts to the site, along with a comment function that lets you attach files. Any wiki page or Weblog is updatable by sending an e-mail. I also viewed categorized pages as a Weblog, which is a nice way to filter content. Still, Socialtext has a few distinctions, such as integrating with instant messaging clients so you know when colleagues are online and can start an IM conversation.

Administration functions aren’t extensive, but should suffice for general needs. For example, Workspace Privacy let me control who could see each workspace (such as only invited users). But Socialtext wouldn’t let me drill down into each user account and establish specific roles and permissions.

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The Enterprise edition adds useful capabilities, including digital certificate support, backup to networked file storage, and the capability of searching your wikis and Weblogs from an existing enterprise search engine.

Socialtext performs core wiki functions that you’d expect, making it faster than collaborating using shared documents or e-mail. There are many deployment options and versions, as well as features that aren’t at first apparent. Although I’ve tested more sophisticated solutions, Socialtext still has much to offer — especially if you don’t need a lot of accessories.

Traction TeamPage 3.7
Much sets Traction TeamPage apart, starting with the company’s core hypertext engine. This technology handles all the indexing, cross-reference, and navigational elements of TeamPage, so you can build extremely large enterprise wikis, yet quickly organize all the content. Traction has excellent usability together with the best — and most flexible — look and feel of the products tested. For instance, different skins can simultaneously display different views of content to employees, partners, and those using mobile devices.

The system’s permission model is equally substantial, so each user sees filtered lists of reports, open issues, or related articles or interest. For search, you can select Traction’s own engine — or the company bundles an OEM version of FAST (Fast Search and Transfer) enterprise search.