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'Web 2.0' Most Popular Wikipedia Entry
theodp writes "It came as no surprise to Tim O'Reilly that Nielsen BuzzMetrics found 'Web 2.0' the most cited Wikipedia article of the year (as measured by blog mentions). After all, says Tim, 'the Wikipedia article on Web 2.0 is indeed pretty darn good.' IIRC, the Web 2.0 Trademark Scandal was also good for a citation or two. BTW, the material in the article crediting O'Reilly & Co. with originating the term 'Web 2.0' was first contributed by '209.204.147.33', which is coincidentally an O'Reilly IP address."
After seeing the "Top Blogs Mention 'Wikipedia'" section in the press release, I wonder how many SEO obsessed bloggers will insert the word 'wikipedia' over and over in their posts (or link to it in every post). I'll bet by next year, the # of mentions of the word 'wikipedia' will go up by at least 10X due to this reason alone.
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I've come to realize that I almost always use Wikipedia as my first stop when researching something I want to learn about. I realized that I was scanning search results for a wikipedia link (now I just go straight to the wikipedia search), and chose that first.
Yes, I know Wikipedia isn't always accurate. Shocking, on a site where anyone can pretty much edit anything. But the breadth of content, and the relatively uniform structure, and the reasonable level of accuracy make Wikipedia my preferred initial stop for most casual research.
It really is an amazing phenomenon.
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Everyone runs to Wikipedia to figure out what the hell Web 2.0 is because nobody knows. I'm not sure the people editing know. As far as I can tell it's just AJAX...so why not call it AJAX? There's no damn VERSIONS of the web!
You think Wikipedia is good? You should try a library!
Everyone runs to Wikipedia to figure out what the hell Web 2.0 is because nobody knows. I'm not sure the people editing know. As far as I can tell it's just AJAX...so why not call it AJAX? There's no damn VERSIONS of the web!
Ah, but the article claims not that it's the most researched term, but the most *cited*! That means loads of morons are citing Web 2.0, talking about Web 2.0, and claiming to be web 2.0, as if it was an actual cohesive thing. Or that it was in any substantial way different than Web 1.0, or Web 0.95 RC2.
It's just buzzword (or bullshit) bingo. These kiddies will be the same ones talking about paradigm shifting your out of the box thinking in a proactive way, or whatever the buzzwords are in 20 years when they have jobs.
It could be that the only purpose of your life is to serve as a warning to others.
I have to agree with you and Tim Berners-Lee and say that this is nothing more than a buzzword. "Web 1.1" maybe, but until it's based on a new protocols and possibly "pipes", it does not deserve a complete, whole number upgrade, or at least not an even number.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
I wasn't going for humour. Let's expand my point a little.
Now, I'm used to a pretty good library service (I've got a Masters degree from a pretty big university), but I think that my point will stand for a whole range of libraries.
Ease: I've found libraries to be very easy to search - if you can work google, you can work the majority of library database search tools. Sure, you may not be able to do in text searching for a book (although you can for most online journal services), but you can use google to do that or, now this is a shocker, do some reading yourself. In short, finding stuff in books is easy. As for books being heavy, or on a high shelf; if you really have used a computer for so long that your body has withered away, I think books will be the last of you worries. I'd be much more concerned about walking to the library and getting mugged on route.
Vastness: No contest.
Updating: If I wanted something that wasn't in stock, it could be ordered. More often, however, a nearby library would have the book and I'd get it on inter-library loan. Basically, if a book came out, I could get a copy very quickly.
Decentralised: Much more than en.wikipeida.org.
Accuracy: You seem to be confusing "accuracy" and "neutrality". Almost nothing is published from a neutral viewpoint - you can't blame this on libraries. The problem with Wikipedia is that it claims to be neutral when it clearly is not. As with searching for things in books, the key to making judgements concerning the accuracy or neutrality of a book is to actually read it, then some more on the same subject.
Wikipedia might be great for people that have no intention or requirement to actually read things; it might be great for getting quick definitions of some TLA you've not encountered before, but it will never replace a library. For people that have to read things and produce credible pieces of work, Wikipedia is a joke: It will never replace traditional publishing. That was what I was trying to get across in my original post. If you found it funny, however, then even better!
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People who think sites like Wordpress blogs aren't Web 2.0 because it has rounded corners and faded headers just don't get it. It's Web 2.0 because it connects your blog to Amazon Wishlist, Cafe Press, Flickr (14 plugins), Last.fm, Netflix, Yahoo, Akismet, etc. http://wp-plugins.net/ lists 182 plugins that connect to external tools.
Web 2.0 is not about the user interface. It's about the server to server interface.
It's not just social networking as in Orkut. But if your profile on a phpBB website listed your friends as you have them listed in Orkut, that's Web 2.0.