In 2010, Qwiki captured the TechCrunch Disrupt cup, thanks to an ambitious product that sought to transform the way people consume information online. Like an interactive, multimedia version of Wikipedia, Qwiki essentially combined images, audio and video for pretty much anything you could search for on the Web into a multidimensional, narrated movies. → Read More
What phone does Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales have in his pocket? An unlocked Android-powered 3G smartphone, made by Huawei – which was selling for $85 on the streets of Kenya last year and now goes for $50. Hundreds of thousands have been bought in Africa — and Wales believes the pace of smartphone adoption on the continent is changing its digital landscape much faster than people realise. → Read More
User generated content company Wikia is breaking the news of its raise of over $10.8 million in Series C funding today in a press release soon to be sent out to tech media. The financing was led by Institutional Venture Partners with a follow on from existing investors Bessemer Ventures Partners and Amazon.com.
The company, which is already profitable according to the release, will use the cash… → Read More
Don’t mess with Jimmy Wales of Wikipedia when it comes to Internet freedom, because he will use harsh words to lash out at you. Today, according to the BBC, Wales had some choice words for the British government and their snooping practices on citizens. Basically, he called them “technologically incompetent.” Yikes.
A quick bit of background here, the British government has been working on a… → Read More
Digg, which in its heyday was effectively run by its power users, is dying. Wikitravel is probably joining it: two-thirds of its admins want to jump ship to the greener grass of the Wikimedia Foundation. Who in turn have their own people problems–a stubborn gender gap and a diminishing number of active admins. Meanwhile, across the Web, people are asking “Is StackOverflow being ruined by its… → Read More
Datasift, the social-data platform which specialises in realtime streams, has done something which is going to make PR people quiver in their boots and journalists sit up and notice. They have turned any changes on Wikipedia into a realtime stream which will be searchable and customisable. The implications are that you’ll be able to track editorial changes to Wikipedia – as well as the people… → Read More
In the world of online mapping, it feels like things aren’t quite going in Google’s direction these days: Apple switched away from Google Maps to OpenStreetMap when it launched iPhoto for iOS. Foursquare, too, announced a similar switch just a few weeks ago and today, Wikipedia switched to OpenStreetMap in the latest versions of its iOS and Android apps.
As our own Josh Constine … → Read More
You may not be familiar with Wikia, but the collaborative media company has been quietly growing into a giant, recently passing IGN, for example, as the largest network of gaming sites on the planet. Led by both its gaming and entertainment verticals, Wikia’s content-driven social network is home to one of the largest and most active communities on the Web. For those unfamiliar, building on the… → Read More
Wikidata, the first new project to emerge from the Wikimedia Foundation since 2006, is now beginning development. The organization, known best for its user-edited encyclopedia of knowledge Wikipedia, recently announced the new project at February’s Semantic Tech & Business Conference in Berlin, describing Wikidata as new effort to provide a database of knowledge that can be read and edited… → Read More
Part of the long-running (and far from over) SOPA/PIPA battle was the drawing of lines in the sand by Internet companies. While most recognized the danger of that irresponsible and short-sighted bill and took action against it, some companies supported it strongly and even testified to that effect in Congress.
GoDaddy was one of those companies, and while it later tried to undo the damage its… → Read More
As you can tell from the homepage, it’s a sad, trying day for the internet. Many of our favorite sites like Reddit and Wikipedia have gone dark, leaving only an argument against SOPA on their homepages in lieu of cat gifs and knowledge. All in all, it will shape up to be an incredibly boring day in the name of justice. Because to be honest, SOPA is unconstitutional in the way it’ll be enforced… → Read More
Wikipedia’s Jimmy Wales wanted to send a “big message” to the U.S. government regarding the two heinous internet censorship bills currently being considered, and after a brief period of debate the world’s encyclopedia will soon do just that.
The Wikipedia founder announced on Twitter today that starting at midnight on Wednesday, January 18, the English language version of the world’s… → Read More
Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit organization that operates Wikipedia and other sites, this morning announced that they’ve raised $20 million from more than a million donors, shattering a record once again. The organization says donations have risen every year since its global fundraising campaigns began in 2003.
Wikimedia Foundation claims its sites now serve more than 470 million people… → Read More
You know, I’m becoming something of a fan of Brandon Harris (the latest face of Wikipedia’s fundraising efforts, which you should absolutely donate to.)
First, he’s a programmer on Wikipedia, which is pretty much the most world-bettering programming gig you could ever have. Second, he stopped in for hugs even as we were sort of poking fun at him. Third, he’s taken the time to answer the… → Read More
The good news is that Wikipedia has finally switched up that image of Jimmy Wales begging for money on its homepage. The bad news is that they’ve replaced it with another unfortunately left aligned image of some random guy (Wikipedia programmer Brandon Harris to be precise) who, according to my email inbox, looks like everything from Jesus, to Nickelback lead singer Chad Kroger to a member of the… → Read More
So we meet again Wales … Yes I know, another holiday season, another reason to poke fun at your silly, scopophobia-inducing banner ads belying the very noble cause of raising $29.5 million for an unlimited supply of constantly updated knowledge — FOR WHICH WE ARE ALL VERY THANKFUL JIMMY, I PROMISE. → Read More
In the true spirit of online activism, the entire Italian Wikipedia website has voluntarily taken itself down in order to protest a bill being proposed to Parliament. The law (“DDL intercettazioni,” roughly translated as Wiretapping Act) would require every website to publish within 48 hours a correction or comment relating to any content an applicant has deemed “detrimental to their image,” as… → Read More
Personal search engine Greplin is announcing the launch of its Wikipedia Search Design Contest today, with the ultimate objective of conceptualizing a better way to search Wikipedia. → Read More
Wikipedia, the good-doers of the Internet, has a bunch of servers that need a new home. Now these aren’t new servers; they’re pre-loved and housebroken. The systems are over three years old, but have at least 3GB of RAM, 2.5GHz dual core CPUs, and at least an 80GB hard drive. The official posting notes that some servers have up to 32GB of RAM and 320GB hard drives. Wikipedia just wants… → Read More
Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by Hunter Walk who spends way too much time researching 1980s hair metal bands on Wikipedia. His obsession with Wikipedia is unrelated to his day job leading the consumer product team at YouTube.
Wikipedia is the world’s 5th largest website, runs no ads and, depressingly, seems to be perpetually on the fringe of solvency. Google for “Jimmy Wales personal… → Read More
Wikipedia just celebrated its tenth birthday. As a self-proclaimed fan of the site, I wanted to share with you this video, made for the occasion as Wikipedia enters its second decade.
The ‘State Of Wikipedia’ video is part of the ‘State Of’ series made by interactive agency from JESS3, and is narrated by Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales. → Read More
It’s the last day of the year, according to the Gregorian calendar at least, which prompted me to do some research on how well Wikipedia’s fundraising efforts for 2010 were going. As you may have heard, the Wikimedia Foundation is trying to scrape together $16 million from user and supporter donations to fund its strategic plans for 2011 (PDF).
The contribution campaign, starring Wikipedia… → Read More
Here’s a funny video that is bound to make the rounds in the next couple of days and weeks in many a Western country, considering the season: THE DIGITAL STORY OF THE NATIVITY (though I think this portuguese version was actually online first).
Behold, the Nativity of Jesus 2.0, featuring Internet sites like Google, Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Wikipedia, Amazon, eBay and yes, iPhone text… → Read More
It’s the most wonderful time of the year! Yes, Christmas has come early again this year with the release of Jimmy Wales’ annual appeal for Wikimedia Foundation donations. Wales’ ubiquitous banner ad is now in its seventh year now and the company is shooting for $16 million dollars to keep their collaborative encyclopedia afloat ad free. → Read More
There is definitely some bad blood between Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales and Wikileaks, the controversial organization which posted thousands of pages of classified Iraqi War documents. On the Charlie Rose Show last night, towards the end of his interview, Wales says, “If I had some information, the last thing I would ever do with it is send it to Wiikileaks.”
He prefaced that remark by noting… → Read More
More Wiki- news for your afternoon. It seems the FBI now has a problem with Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia, specifically the site’s “unauthorised reproduction of the FBI Seal [that is] prohibited by US law.” That is, the FBI does not like the fact that its logo is available on Wikipedia. The world has run out of things to complain about, I’m thinking. → Read More
A new study by ForeSee Results and the American Customer Satisfaction Index finds that U.S. consumers regard social media sites Facebook and Myspace as lowly as they regard cable providers, airlines and the I.R.S.
The Annual E-Business Report for the A.C.S.I. study encompassed thirty online media brands in the categories of: portals and search engines, news and information sites and for the first… → Read More
What’s the best site on the Web these days? Wikipedia, correct. Haters will hate, of course, pointing to this or that error, or highlighting high-profile compilations, but the spirit of the site endures: free and open information for all. Now a study has been published that says, you know what, on the whole, the information on Wikipedia isn’t any less accurate than you’ll find elsewhere. Does this… → Read More
Contrary to several reports, Wikipedia’s Founder Jimmy Wales is not relinquishing his editorial control of Wikipedia and its related projects. On Friday, Fox News reported that “a shakeup is underway at the top levels of Wikipedia…Wales is no longer able to delete files, remove administrators, assign projects or edit any content, sources say. Essentially, they say, he has gone from having free… → Read More
Wikipedia is easily one of the most visited sites in the world, and it doesn’t look like that’s going to change anytime soon. This morning, the Wikimedia Foundation announced a number of changes it has made to make the experience for visitors and contributors better.
Most apparent is the new look and feel, which includes a refreshed puzzle globe logo, which was originally created in 2003. The… → Read More
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