To capitalize on the opportunity, startups such as Socialtext Inc. are selling wiki software…Like open-source software, wikis may make their biggest mark less as a business than as a potent force for change — in this case, in the way people work.

Nowhere is that potential more apparent than in today’s far-flung, time-pressed corporate teams. Aaron Burcell, director of marketing for e-mail software startup Stata Laboratories Inc., says working on a wiki has cut the daily phone calls he made on a raft of projects to one a week. It also has allowed Stata to outsource more work, such as engineering, to India. Says Burcell: “I could justify the cost of the wiki just from the lower teleconferencing bills.”

Wikis may find their way into more public use. Adam Hertz, vice-president for technology strategy at Eastman Kodak Co.’s (EK ) online photo unit, Ofoto, is mulling their potential outside corporate walls: Shutterbugs could use them to let relatives and friends contribute stories about photos in their collections. Before long, we may all be hopping a ride on a wiki.

And Kos just announced the dKosopedia, an open collaborative wiki that the community edits. (Think of this as the political junkie equivalent of Wikipedia.)