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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?
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.
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?
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.