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Wikipedia Founder Introduces Wiki Magazine Sites
KingJawa writes "Wikipedia blew away Encyclopedia Brittanica, but can the model be used to upset the magazine industry? Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, thinks so. His company, Wikia, today announced three open-source magazine-style sites where users can write about news, opinion and gossip — one magazine wiki each for politics, entertainment, and local interests. Each open-source magazine hands total editorial control to the readers, allowing them to read, write, edit, and dictate the editorial feel for each topic."
It's called MySpace, blogspot.com, wordpress, etc.
User-generated content is good, but it's no mass-media killer - especially when other folks have already gone down this road already.
Interesting idea. The main difference between newspapers/magazines and encyclopedias is of course the timing of information. I can write an encyclopedia article about a subject I know by investing time and research. However, the research for writing magazine articles is much different, relying on interviews, travelling, even subpoenas, etc.
Wikepedia already has certain magazine aspects to it, it is updated with current events quite quickly. But those articles are (usually) simply relaying information obtained from a traditional news source.
I would like to see the attemp though, what's the harm?
Isn't that why I read Slashdot?
Not exactly a new idea, is it?
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
Clicking through the politics wikimag I was surprised to see (announced as breaking news, no less) the story Anna Nicole Smith 1967-2007 DEAD. And that's politics?
(Now if someone edited the story to make it that GWB had authorised the raising of ANS from the dead, that would be politics).
Wikipedia didn't blow away Encyclopedia Brittanica. Encarta did. As Bill Gates once pointed out to Brittanica, the Brittanica sales force of door to door sales reps added negative value to the product once it could be put on CD-ROM. Brittanica's problem was a high cost per sale.
Are this magazines competition to wikinews?
The collaborative news project is a supplement to Wikipedia, but suffers from lack of authors and articles. Wikipedians prefer to write encyclopaedia artcles about news stories, which leads to problems: unverified pieces of information appear in Wikipedia articles and are not corrected afterwards.
I'm sorry, I don't want to upset too many wiki-ites, but it really didn't blow away Britannica. It had the same number of errors per article with shorter articles. Of course, this is a very crude metric - the significance of these errors is also important, but probably un-quantifiable.
Wikipedia is still troll ridden and error prone, and I think even the greatest fans will admit this. You only need think of the Stephen Colbert/Elephant thing to see how abused it can be. There is more information on Stargate Atlantis than Goethe. Whilst some people may consider wikipedia a useful tool, making statements like this just fuel its detractors.
Given that Hollywood stars have sued tabloids in the past for printing false and/or damaging articles these Wiki Magazines really seem like a bad idea. What is to stop someone from posting something complete false, degrading or career damaging in the entertainment.wiki? Who will be responsible when the affected party seeks monetary compensation for the perceived damage?
Britannica was in trouble by 1996. That's when it laid off it's entire door-to-door sales force. By 1998 the staff had halved in size. Now, WHEN did Wikipedia become a force?
How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
The real question is, what happens when they enter the market for , ahem, Gentlemen's Magazines? Since they are all read for the articles anyway...
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
Original:
A recent study further supports the theory of Darwinian Evolution [...]
Edit 1:
A recent study further contradicts the theory of Darwinian Evolution [...]
Edit 2:
A recent study further supports (sod off creationists) the theory of Darwinian Evolution [...]
Edit 3:
A recent study further contradicts (f*ck U & UR ape mother, evolutionist!!) the theory of Darwinian Evolution [...]
Edit 4:
A recent study further -CHEAP VIAGRA, call 0800 LURV ACTION now!!!!- the theory of Darwinian Evolution [...]
People can have very strong feelings when it comes to opinions and allowing them to edit opinion pieces is just asking for a flamefest.
Wiki magazines?
First edit: And the man of the year award goes to: Bill Clinton
Second edit: And the woman of the year award goes to: Hillary Clinton
Third Edit: And the woman of the year award goes to: Boy George
Fourth Edit: And the woman of the year award goes to: George Dubya
Fifth Edit: And the person of the year award goes to: George Dubya
Sixth Edit: And the person of the year award goes to: Bill Clinton
Moderator Message: Stop playing with it, we're locking it down for 48 hours.
Time Edit: (pushes clock ahead two days)
Seventh Edit: And the person of the millenium award goes to: Bill Clinton
Moderator Message: Stop playing with it, we're locking it down for 9999999 hours.
Eight Edit: Moderator Message: Stop playing with it, we're locking it down for 0 hours.
Ninth Edit: And the person of the millenium award goes to: Me
Have you read my journal today?
And despite the Wiki crowd's insistence to the opposite, Wiki's aren't user friendly.
They have a complex rule-set for editing, discussion and notation.
Wikia fails the first test of mass marketing technological solutions: Keep it simple.
Blogs may be less sophisticated on the back-end, but here's a newsflash: people who
read gossip blogs could give a crap.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
In the Politics magazine they have a listing for Democrat and Republican sections that appear to be pretty active. The Libertarian section is empty. On the main page most of the topics seem to be arguments between Democrats and Republicans. There is an article on Bill Redpath but there are no comments. It didn't take long for this place to just turn into another partisan battle ground between Dems and Reps.
I can't wait to read the threads at this place as the elections get nearer. They should have some really insightful information by then.
"Anything tastes good if you deep fry it."
Wikipedia.org is a pretty well made site. It works fine in multiple browsers and is simple enough that most people understand it the first time they use it. I went and tried out the local news "wiki magazine" (called local.wikia.com) and was very disappointed. It was not at all intuitive or easy to find/contribute by comparison. It is sorted into sub categories, but the ability to add or edit articles was a distinct, different part of the UI. You click on an option in the "Share" section to add an article, instead of just going to the right section once you've specified a locality. Worse yet, using Safari, it automatically forwards you past the page where you specify the tile for the article using some javascript and it hangs the Safari browser when you actually submit a title.
Between the usability nightmare and the lack of cross-platform testing, it is clear these people are either not serious or are incompetent. I'll stick with one of the many pre-existing local news wikis, thanks. The name "Jimmy Wales" was the only reason I looked at this site. Congratulations, Mr. Wales, you've just tarnished your reputation by associating it with this garbage.
I'll be looking out for when Wiki-Playboy starts up along with its "open-source" models (wink, wink).
I no longer write anything on Wikipedia. I've been in the process of crafting an article, saved it, and then seen it come up for deletion because the category editors didn't like it. Now mind you, this was a stub, so anything that I put there that's accurate is better than what was there - which was nothing. It usually takes me quite a while to write an article, especially when I'm citing original sources and marshaling all of my facts, dates, etc. The third time that this happened to me, I started poking around. There's a very political structure to the Wiki editing that is, IMHO, very *un*-cool.
2 cents,
Queen B.
HDGary secures my bank