Wikipedia - Then And Now!!

Social Media Business Model Change:

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit, got its three millionth article in English tonight. The family of sites as a whole has more than 13 million articles in more than 260 languages, not counting discussion pages and other errata. Wikipedia's millionth article was about a train station and the two millionth was on a Spanish TV show. This one is a biography of a Norwegian actress and director named Beate Eriksen. True to form you can also find bios of Eriksen in about half-a-dozen other languages, and the article is changing rapidly due to all the attention. Sponsor

Figuring it Out:

The pace at which edits to the site roll by is pretty blinding, so the exact article was determined via a bot written by a Wikipedia editor.

The announcement comes just before the annual Wikimania conference, which is an international gathering of contributors to all the Wikimedia Foundation projects. Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository that's a sister project to Wikipedia, is also expected to have its 5 millionth image or video uploaded before the end of the month. Another recent development is the beta release of a new skin for Wikipedia, one which is the first complete usability overhaul for the site in years. For a taste of Wikipedia's future look, either log in on the site or check out our screenshot below of the 3 millionth article.

Is Deletion on the Docket?

The biography may be the first legitimate article to be called the 3 millionth, but that doesn't mean it will stay that way. The article in question has no special status, and could be deleted like any other if it doesn't comply with the site's standards for inclusion. If it is deleted, then it looks like an article entitled Portuguese Fireplace would default to the 3 millionth article. The one page created just after Eriksen's biography wouldn't really count, since it's simply a redirect to one of the site's many disambiguation pages.

Get it Straight: Wikipedia isn't Dying
In the past month there's been a media narrative floating about that Wikipedia is in decline. Nearly all of the articles have referenced research by scientists at PARC's (as in Xerox Parc) Augmented Social Cognition group.

The studies by PARC are some of the best scientific analysis of Wikipedia's community ever done, but it's led to some rather sensationalist conclusions by media outlets. PARC's models for Wikipedia's growth and community are ones shared by some within Wikipedia's community, but neither contingent is openly saying that the site is on its last legs. As this milestone demonstrates, a changing community doesn't spell imminent doom for Wikipedia.

Change in Business Model:

Wikipedia came up with the concept of color coding. It will be concept where the user edit article will be given color based on their expertise on the subject and the valid content in the article.


Wikipedia tightens editing rules and hence restricting user to edit all the articles especially the one which is related to the living people.

But still,

People are paying big time and are using wiki as their prime source of information.

Confusing Facts – But made me think for a while. –Article by expert.

I was saying all this in support of the Wikipedia survival but still, I came up at one article which has a set of solid reasons that why Wikipedia will fail in the near future if they don’t change their strategy from the core.

My Personal Views:

Wikipedia should leave its own business model and should try to figure out some other ways to survive in this competitive market.

May be its time to embrace the age old internet site revenue source – ADVERTISEMENT!!!

Copyright © Hardik Upadhyay

You can follow me on TWITTER

JSK

Will you "PAY" for Free Content

Hi Folks,

Now-a-days, internet is the prime necessity for most of the users. Every user wants the content to be online so that it can be easily accessible but what about the solution to this system. The patterns which get formed by these complicated things will make the system worse.

I will give you an example.
Mr. A says that he plans to put his content, which covers the known world and some others as well, behind a firewall so that people will have to pay for it. He thinks the future of web content will be pay-as-you-go.

But is he thinking right? Will customer pay for the content provided by him by paying when at the same time, it is provided free of cost by the other provider.

Today’s New York Times has a nice puff piece today about the Financial Times, which also charges people for access to its content on the internet. So on the one hand, there seems to be a groundswell moving to make charging for content the hipster move on the web. On the other hand, the only really hot spots in the cloud are free.


Would anybody pay for YouTube?
If it cost 5-cents per tweet, would there be so many tweeters?
How about Facebook or Orkut? Will you make so many friends or so many scrap if it will be paid service?
Would millions of lonely, homebound losers be encapsulating their lives in their entire digital splendor if they had to whip out a credit card to do so?
Or Google?
Would we thoughtlessly search a billion times a year if at the end of every month we were awarded a bill that tabulated the cost of every click?

Hmmm... I guess we never gave a thought to it. But now lots of these companies are trying to find the solution and to increase their revenue.

My opinion is that media has always been driven by advertising that users can choose to entertain or ignore. Even newspapers — which would seem to break that mold by charging a pittance for their content — have been subsidized by their advertising for centuries.

The moment I hit a site that asks me for money, I simply navigate to calmer waters. How about you?

The big media outlets are all abuzz with the financial plans of online entities to move to a new business model based on subscriptions. Would you pay for the stuff you do online? I mean the clean stuff?

Copyright © Hardik Upadhyay

You can follow me on TWITTER

JSK