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Google Donating Bandwidth and Servers to Wikipedia

Posted by CowboyNeal on Thu Feb 10, 2005 07:35 PM
from the yes-have-some dept.
Google Announcements
Armstr0ng writes "According to Dirson's blog, Google plans to help Wikipedia by donating bandwidth and servers to handle part of their increasing load. In fact, there's an official page of Google's proposal to host some of the content of the Wikimedia projects."
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  • G-Franchise (Score:5, Funny)

    by fembots (753724) on Thursday February 10 2005, @07:36PM (#11636829) Homepage
    1. Gmail
    2. Gbrowser
    3. Ghosting

  • It's awesome... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by domenic v1.0 (610623) on Thursday February 10 2005, @07:38PM (#11636854)
    Google donating bandwidth for the better of the internet community. If only more internet or tech companies would show some dedication like this into improving the education for the masses over the internet for the people. Hats off to google again.

    • Re:It's awesome... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by LilGuy (150110) on Thursday February 10 2005, @07:44PM (#11636918)
      I can't help but wonder if this could backfire on wikipedia tho... suppose somewhere down the line they're heavily dependent on google's help.. and google disagrees with some content on it (read: investors aren't happy with content), there's a possibility of censorship or removal of content?

      I know people are gonna fly off the handle at me for even suggesting google could ever do anything so wrong, but you never know... especially once the stock market becomes involved.
      [ Parent ]

      • Re:It's awesome... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by kryogen1x (838672) on Thursday February 10 2005, @08:16PM (#11637224)
        ...and google disagrees with some content on it (read: investors aren't happy with content), there's a possibility of censorship or removal of content?

        The content doesn't have to be hosted on Google's servers for Google to edit the content. Wikipedia articles can be edited by anyone.

        [ Parent ]

    • Re:It's awesome... (Score:5, Informative)

      by goon america (536413) on Thursday February 10 2005, @07:56PM (#11637045) Homepage Journal
      Plenty more people would do so if there were an official mirroring system for Wikipedia, which there is not. All kinds of people would be tripping over themselves to lend bandwidth and servers to them if there were such as process, and IIRC they've gotten offers before from universities and such.

      If Google wants to help out, I don't see why they should be get any kind of special access. The ball is not in Google's court, but in Wikipedia's.

      (No disrespect to Vibber and the guys keeping the servers at Wikipedia HQ online; they're doing god's work. But the site would probably be a lot more stable with an army of official mirrors than with a single, monolithic server farm.)
      [ Parent ]

  • One idea as to why Google is doing this.... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by MBraynard (653724) on Thursday February 10 2005, @07:38PM (#11636863) Journal
    so when you do a google search on a particular subject - you get an immediate link at the top to the related wiki entries.

    But others could do this, too? So maybe Wiki can limit the ability of others to do this, and give this ability exclusively to Google?

    What I am trying to ascertain is what value can Wiki give google other than advert space, which is apparently not part of the current deal?

    • Re:One idea as to why Google is doing this.... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by MOMOCROME (207697) <momocrome AT gmail DOT com> on Thursday February 10 2005, @07:56PM (#11637038)
      Google needs to solve the problem of people searching a term to get a rough idea of the meaning. They've got it covered for definitions, but more advanced concepts are still wanting.

      As it is, say you are interested about what happened in 1033 AD. If you search for "1033" you get a range of pages that have anything to do with 1033 AD, instead you get info abobut RFC 1033, port 1033, california legislation s.1033, and so on. If you search for "1033 AD" you likewise get a wide range of incidental and nearly useless trivia about 1033 AD, with very little in the way of comprehensive overview.

      Wikipedia has an entire page on the events of every year starting at around 900 AD, iirc. It should be the first hit for searches like that. Google is looking for a means to justify making it so, without complaint from the wikioids and without complaint from the people stressing over page rank for their site. Expect a section with an automatic overview of the wikipedia entry, similar to how they are placing image search results at the top of some searches now, or like they do with news.

      The deal here is that google wants to retain the lead spot for quick reference needs. Wikipedia serves that purpose very well, but I'd say most people don't know to check it out.
      [ Parent ]

  • Slashdot Donating Hits and Trolls to Wikipedia (Score:5, Funny)

    by mbrubeck (73587) on Thursday February 10 2005, @07:39PM (#11636872) Homepage
    "According to this post [slashdot.org], Slashdot plans to help Wikipedia by using up bandwidth and adding to their increasing load."

  • Just thought about this the other day... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Hooded One (684008) <hoodedoneNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Thursday February 10 2005, @07:39PM (#11636875) Homepage Journal
    ...when I heard about Google maps. I wondered how long it would take Google to start their own wiki, then I decided they wouldn't be likely to duplicate the efforts of Wikipedia. Didn't occur to me that they might do this instead. Cool.

  • They need it. (Score:5, Informative)

    by irokitt (663593) <archimandrites-i ... m ['oo.' in gap]> on Thursday February 10 2005, @07:40PM (#11636879)
    It usually is a 10 minute process to login to Wikipedia and call up an edit page. Not to mention that this might help with all of the Slashdottings Wikipedia's servers have to survive;)

  • We should all be cheerleading for Google (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sisukapalli1 (471175) on Thursday February 10 2005, @07:40PM (#11636880)
    Google is able to pull off new stuff while sticking to "do no evil" philosophy. And, what more, because of competition from Google, Yahoo has started offering better services (e.g. the Yahoo toolbar for firefox). So, good for the end user.

    S

  • No ads required (Score:5, Interesting)

    by melted (227442) on Thursday February 10 2005, @07:41PM (#11636895) Homepage
    I would actually not mind Google ads on the bottom of Wikipedia pages if they're relevant. Let's say I'm reading about some scientific shit on there, and google suggests a few books on the bottom of the page. I migh just as well go ahead and buy them.

    • Re:No ads required (Score:5, Funny)

      by nettdata (88196) on Thursday February 10 2005, @07:58PM (#11637071) Homepage
      I would actually not mind Google ads on the bottom of Wikipedia pages if they're relevant. Let's say I'm reading about some scientific shit on there, ...

      Hmmm... not sure I'd want to buy some "scientific shit", but hey, each to their own. ;)
      [ Parent ]

  • Why Not use AdSense? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by LostCluster (625375) * on Thursday February 10 2005, @07:41PM (#11636898)
    Currently, Wikipedia is relying on charitable donations in order to get its funding... but why don't they just add the Google AdSense code into their pages?

    Even their own Advertising on Wikipedia [wikimedia.org] policy page admits ads are going to happen someday. Wouldn't this be the best way for them to go?

    • Re:Why Not use AdSense? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Captain Nitpick (16515) on Thursday February 10 2005, @08:12PM (#11637189)
      Even their own Advertising on Wikipedia policy page admits ads are going to happen someday. Wouldn't this be the best way for them to go?

      Did you intentionally read that incorrectly, or what?

      Advertising is not going to happen on Wikipedia. The last time it was half-heartedly entertained, the Spanish Wikipedia misinterpreted it as a definitive statement and forked.

      [ Parent ]

  • Another jab at MSN? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sangreal66 (740295) on Thursday February 10 2005, @07:44PM (#11636935)
    Seems like Google hasn't taken to kindly to Microsoft's recent launch of the new MSN Search. Last week they moved Google Local to the front page in an apparent effort to meet Microsoft's localization feature. This move looks to me like an attempt at meeting Microsoft's Encarta integration.

  • A letter to Google (Score:5, Interesting)

    by DiscoBobby (196458) * on Thursday February 10 2005, @07:48PM (#11636981)
    Dear Google,
    Could you guys be any cooler? Hey, I know I'm a geeky Google fanboy, you make me look smart at my job every day. I'm not pretending otherwise, let's get that straight. It's hard not to like a friend like that. And I know you've had PR issues with employee bloggers, but on balance you guys do more "good things" than just about any other Big Evil Internet Corporation around. Granted, the Gates Foundation gives a lot of money to worthy causes, but their patron takes our money and freedom with the other hand. Long term you probably want to make a buck off Wikipedia, and you're getting your foot in the door now. They ARE one of the best resources around, and it fits your strategy of being the answer to just about any question.

    But strangely, I trust you guys not to screw it up, unlike some others (Micro*cough*) I can think of. I think you're crazy enough to let Wikipedia run under it's own editorial control - if you can call it that ;) - without heavy-handed corporate meddling. I hope you'll just let it purr along with minimal intervention and let it make you money. Better Google than MS, I say. And if it's really just a charity gesture, well, a big hellyeah and mucho goodwill to you all.

  • I wonder if they will help Gutenburg? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by WindBourne (631190) on Thursday February 10 2005, @07:54PM (#11637021) Journal
    The gutenberg project is another that is deserving of bandwidth and servers.
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