MindTouch has released a beta version of an "instant wiki" system at the rather nice wiki.com address. It really is a beta, as I discovered by doing a quick bit of copy-and-paste to create a wiki about Pictures at an Exhibition. It's also not clear how anybody else would add to it.
In this particular case, it would have been easier and made more sense to add sub-pages to the Wikipedia entry. However, I still think it's a great idea to offer free wikis at wiki.com, and I'll be interested to see what turns up there.
Update: It turns out that I missed the background to this story while I was otherwise engaged (ie working on the paper). The quick recap is that "Domain name speculator John Gotts" -- man behind Adware.com -- sort of bought the wiki.com domain for $2.8 million. Wired News says:
Wiki.com is the startup equivalent of instant cuisine. According to Gotts, a team of engineers put together most of the site's backend in a caffeine-fueled span of 48 hours. The site runs using technology from MindTouch, a Washington wiki-software and hardware startup founded by former Microsoft employees.
It's "sort of" bought because, according to Wired, "rather than buy the site outright, [Gotts] agreed to pay the owner, business naming firm Dynamo, $10,000 a month for six months to use the domain. The deal gives Gotts an option to buy it for the full $2.8 million at the end."
Valleywag has the interesting post Gotts Milks: An interview with the man who bought Wiki.com
