Wikis over time

IBM's alphaWorks has release a new tool that will allow you to visualize the history of a Wiki document. This is really cool. It's written in Java, and it appears to be available for license, though I'm not sure under what terms. There is a plug-in for MoinMoin and MediaWiki.

I'm not sure if this is useful in a business context, or only to satisfy academic curiosity. But it might be. I think I'd have to live with it a while to know for sure. But it's clear to me that Wiki vendors need to provide very good tools for understanding the histories of documents, for evaluating changes, and for comparing and managing versions. Those will be crucial for any site with a more than a few authors.

Link via if:Book.