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Wikipedia Founder Introduces Wiki Magazine Sites

Posted by Zonk on Tue Feb 13, 2007 12:31 PM
from the wiki-wiki-wiki-wiki-world dept.
The Media The Internet
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."
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  • They already have this (Score:3, Insightful)

    by DietCoke (139072) on Tuesday February 13 2007, @12:36PM (#17999464)
    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.

    • Re:They already have this (Score:4, Informative)

      by Chapter80 (926879) on Tuesday February 13 2007, @12:50PM (#17999712)
      Even more like it: Associated Content [associatedcontent.com]. Looks like you can write about anything you want, and get paid. AND it shows up on Google News.

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by DietCoke (139072)
        Exactly. So many websites have sprung up with the expectation that "if you provide them with a web-based gui editor, they will come" - yet they do virtually nothing for the submitter but provide them with hosting space. Considering the cost of data versus the cost of paying for content creation, I can understand why it's a alluring business idea. The problem is that it really leaves you exposed to market elements - what happens if people get bored with the service (*cough* Myspace *cough*). As well, unl

        • Don't get me wrong, there are some folks who will love just seeing their name in print. But the vast majority of people know they can already do that without having to cast their lot in with this place. Unless Wales can provide some additional value to the user aside from a little exposure, I don't see this one differentiating itself from the 50,000 other websites looking for content creators.

          All true except for one factor - those 50,000 other websites don't have (tens or hundreds of) thousands of wikidroi

      • 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 poki
        • Get into the talk page and disagree. Many deletes go through because nobody contests, or does so for some emotional reason that're outside of general wiki policy.

          Little articles do come and go quickly. Until an area gets well defined people often refactor and delete stubs regularly.

          But was the deletion of that page the end of your data, of could you just stuff it into the closest related article for now?

  • Good idea (Score:4, Insightful)

    by flynt (248848) on Tuesday February 13 2007, @12:36PM (#17999466)
    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?
    • I like that it's focused in three areas, and not all over the place. That will increase their odds of success, not to mention the revenue stream from the advertising on the sites will help fund Wikipedia.

    • The main difference between newspapers/magazines and encyclopedias is of course the timing of information

      That and mode of consumption. With encyclopedias, I'm usually already at my computer, doing research of some kind. I like to read my magazines in bed, while in the bathroom, or when I need to kill time (public transportation, waiting at a doctor's office for an appointment, etc.). I don't want to sit at my computer and read a magazine.

  • Isn't that why I read Slashdot?

    Not exactly a new idea, is it?
    • Yeah, but if Slashdot was a Real Magazine, it would be glossy. And it would smell nice.

      Seriously, aside from cologne inserts, there's far more to magazines that distinguish them from websites seeking to usurp their moniker. Last I checked, typographers were using PDF, and web designers were relying on browsers to render their work.

      Probably why I don't read The New York Times on line very often. The newsprint version, in addition to "working better", actually looks better, though to be fair, the on-line v

  • So now instead of arguing back and forth with others in one (of many available) forums out there, you can just go in and change the commentary of your antagonist.

    This seems to me just to be another collaborative site launch into an already saturated market. The only novelty is that you can go and mess with someone else's opinion or contribution.

  • Can? Check. Worms? Check. (Score:4, Funny)

    by Rob T Firefly (844560) on Tuesday February 13 2007, @12:39PM (#17999538) Homepage Journal

    The Politics Community ( http://politics.wikia.com/ [wikia.com] ), which features national, state and local sections where users are able to search and contribute by state and/or zip code. Contributors can share and discuss their political opinions, build out historical resources and voter guides, or simply just read and comment on the others thoughts and learn about political issues.
    And as we all know, user-postable websites are the absolute best, most pristine resource for calm, mature, intelligent political discourse.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by atomic777 (860023)
      Considering that it is common to hear a certain popular news broadcaster telling a guest to "shut up", Wikia can't be much worse. I don't think there's a whole lot of civilised discussion going on in the (mainstream) media these days on either side of the political divide. Don't blame the medium, blame the people.

  • Politics: "Anne Nicole Smith dead" !? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by adnonsense (826530) on Tuesday February 13 2007, @12:40PM (#17999546) Homepage Journal

    Clicking through the politics [wikia.com] wikimag I was surprised to see (announced as breaking news, no less) the story Anna Nicole Smith 1967-2007 DEAD [wikia.com]. 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).

    • 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?
      You're obviously blissfully unaware of the fact that Anna Nicole's implants were actually a pair of manifestations of a gestalt alien intelligence which was secretly running the world through a complex network of shadow governments and puppet regimes for a complex reality show called "Earth" which was a big hit with the unwashed masses on their own planet. Anna Nicole herself was humanity's bravest freedom fighter, as she had figured out that the creatures' only weakness was massive amounts of alcohol ingested slowly over time.
    • 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?

      With the recent photos released of her in bed with the Bahamian immigration minister, I guess it's possible to squeeze a blurb into that topic.
    • (Now if someone edited the story to make it that GWB had authorised the raising of ANS from the dead, that would be politics).

      Sheesh - isn't the whole point of a Wiki that you can do that yourself?

  • Especially for the gossip and politics parts. I mean, everybody knows that the politics articles on Wikipedia are the best of the lot. Creationism, abortion, the republican party, George Bush. They're all great, balanced articles that come about with a healthy amount of consensus and almost never require their silly useless "aribitration" process. Everyone is an expert on teh interwebs. But hey, like the submitter says, Wikipedia "blew away Britannica".

    I'm going to go out on a limb here and theorize that

    • Creationism, abortion, the republican party, George Bush. They're all great
      Attitudes like that are what cause global warming! Don't get me started...
    • I would guess you're correct that ads will be a central part of this design (rather than incidental in some of wikipedia's less discerning puff pieces).

      However, if ad revenue is crucial to the business model for this new venture then it's going to have be even more locked down and controlled than wikipedia already is. There are many many cases of advertisers pulling their ads from mainstream magazines because they were unhappy with editorial direction and comment. This being the main reason why most maga

  • Not Wikipedia, Encarta. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Animats (122034) on Tuesday February 13 2007, @12:45PM (#17999638) Homepage

    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.

    • Wikipedia didn't blow away Encyclopedia Brittanica.


      That's right, it did not. Because "Encyclopedia Brittanica" doesn't exist.

      You don't have to believe me, look it up in Encyclopedia Britannica.

  • Difference to Wikinews? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by tmk (712144) on Tuesday February 13 2007, @12:51PM (#17999752)

    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

    • There is more information on Stargate Atlantis than Goethe.
      What is the specific problem with having information on Brad Wright and Robert C. Cooper in addition to J. W. Goethe? Should an encyclopedia cut off coverage of works of authorship at AD 1923?
          • FWIW, the Atlantis article contains only about roughly 300 more words than the Goethe one, and about 400 less if you take out things like cast and broadcaster lists.

            Also comparing an article about a modern tv series to the biography of an author is just stupid. There are at least dozens of people involved, many writers, many actors, millions of dollars, and literally hundreds (I'm pulling this number out of my ass here, but it's probably a minimum) of episodes. There simply is just more that you can write a
  • 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?

  • Wiki did not blow away Britannica (Score:5, Informative)

    by mschuyler (197441) on Tuesday February 13 2007, @12:57PM (#17999874) Homepage Journal
    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?

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by malsdavis (542216)
      Additionally, the encyclopaedia Britannica is predominantly a printed encyclopaedia, whereas Wikipedia is entirely a digital / online encyclopaedia.

      The two are in less competition than many people realise. Sure wikipedia probably killed off Britannica's on-line subscription revenue dreams but - although I do not know their subscription figures - judging on subscription figures for similar print media which has transferred to the web (newspapers, dictionaries, other encyclopaedias) I bet it was extremely low
      • Most people, especially the younger generation, will probably see little value in a printed volume-based encyclopedia, apart from making a bookshelf look pretty.

        I see absolutely no value whatsoever in one.
        • I think the point of my post was that there is value in printed material.

          I like to think of myself as a member of the "younger generation", but when I'm studying or at the university library printed encyclopaedias are much more useful.

          If you are not currently at a computer then to view wikipedia you must first boot it up and type in / click on a bookmark to wikipedia then look up the article. On most computers this takes anywhere in the range 2 - 5 minutes. There is no way it would take that long to pull ou
    • Do not question the wisdom of Jimmy Wales! Wikipedia blew away all encyclopedias, and that is the end of the story! It is the ultimate in reference works, it is accurate, it is infallible, it is omnipresent, and if it weren't for a patent dispute with Microsoft, it would be omniscient as well!
  • 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...
    • J. Paul Getty's autobiographical How To Be Rich was originally published serially in Playboy. So, there is some truth to the whole "read for the articles" bit. Of course, I'm sure the nude women don't hurt its distribution at all.

  • great idea! (Score:3, Funny)

    by teslar (706653) on Tuesday February 13 2007, @01:02PM (#17999948)

    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.
    What a fantastic idea. I'm looking forward to seeing the evolution of an article through time:

    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.

  • Moo (Score:2, Funny)

    by Chacham (981)
    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 ahe
  • ...wikipedia to only allow hearsay, it only seems fitting that if there were to be a magizine based on teh same that it would be one of politics, entertainment or and in summary... gossip.

    The difference here is that the policies of wikipedia are such that responsibility is taken off wikipedia, unlike other publications and encyclopedias.

    Having no responsibility that could see a court room should say a lot about the trustworthyness of it.
  • So I was very interested in seeing what the WikiLocal [wikia.com] site was like and checked it out. The main portal page is there, but try clicking the links on the page. It's pretty much a 404 farm right now. The site should have been tested before it was announced for general use. How many people now will just walk away from it instead of contributing right away? And how long before they get around to checking it out again? This site could have had a strong pop from day 1 if it were actually ready to start hand

  • The only thing "new" is that this is a Wiki.... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by popo (107611) on Tuesday February 13 2007, @01:56PM (#18000824) Homepage

    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.

  • Politics.Wikia already too partisan (Score:4, Informative)

    by BunnyClaws (753889) on Tuesday February 13 2007, @01:59PM (#18000882) Homepage
    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 [wikia.com] 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.

  • Usability (Score:4, Informative)

    by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF (813746) on Tuesday February 13 2007, @02:12PM (#18001064)

    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).
  • Wikipedia blew away Encyclopedia Britannica[ citation needed [wikipedia.org]]

    Fixed.

    Rob

    • I hope they introduce a geek/computer/technology-magazine too.
      Why? We already have Slashdot, Digg, k5, LWN, Linux.com, etc. One more to the pile? There's more to life than technology and computers and geek topics. Most of us geeks are also very well versed in politics, entertainment, world affairs, local affairs, law, business, etc. That's one reasons why sites like the wikia magazines, groklaw, and so forth have been popping up as of late.
      • "Most of us geeks are also very well versed in ... etc."

        Hot damn! Which of those other sites to they hang out in?
    • The prob he's going to have is that the agendum of the media is not that of academia. Slashdot comes close because its 'for nerds'. Digg is just a freefall directory of crap. Not a magazine. It points to articles, but doesn't have/create any. Its agenda are closer to those of the media however.

      It'll be interesting, but it won't be a magazine.
    • No, it'll fail because I can't read it on an airplane or in the bathroom. Sheesh, where do you read magazines?

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