WeJITS is collaboration in a persistent link
Third in a series. 
Every few years something comes along to fundamentally change how we use the World Wide Web, whether it is online video, social networking, dynamic pages or even search, itself. Last week a new technology called WeJIT was announced that looks like something small but is really something big because it extends collaboration from specialized sites like wikis to everywhere HTML is used. WeJITS is collaboration in a persistent link.
WeJITS come from Democrasoft, a company here Santa Rosa, Calif. that is best known for Collaborize Classroom, a cloud-based service used by more than 30,000 teachers to interact with students, deliver lessons from a global peer reviewed library and even give tests. WeJITS take the best of Collaborize Classroom and place it in a single link.
In one sense WeJITS don’t seem like much, but when you see how easy it is to create these little standalone web pages and how they can be inserted into blogs, email messages, even in ebooks, creating conversations, polls and requesting ideas in what is normally one-way communication, it’s pretty powerful. WeJITS turn email into social networking without participants having to join anything. WeJITS turn tweets into discussions.
WeJITS can coax participation out of people who are normally very quiet, too, like that friend who would never be caught dead on Facebook or LinkedIn. They can take away a lot of that work, building and expanding audiences.
I remember speaking at Pleasanton Junior High School on the day after 9/11 back in 2001 and teacher Fred Emerson telling me how game-changing he thought his new iPod could be. I didn’t see it. To me the iPod looked like just another MP3 player. But I was wrong because iPod allowed users to carry all their music with them wherever they went and came with a built-in distribution ecosystem.
That’s they way I think WeJITS can be, too. They aren’t much to look at but since they are quick and easy, inclusive and free I expect them to eventually have a big impact on the way we interact online.
Or maybe I’m wrong. You tell me. And use this WeJIT to do so.
Also in this series: "Designing a better electric plane" and "JavaScript video is your density, I mean, Destiny".
Reprinted with permission
Photo Credit: d3images/Shutterstock