Submission + - Wikipedia Edits Forecast Vice Presidential Picks (washingtonpost.com)
JimLane writes: "This story in the Washington Post reports on the findings of Cyveillance, a company that 'normally trawls the Internet for data on behalf of clients seeking open source information in advance of a corporate acquisition, an important executive hire, or brand awareness.' Cyveillance decided 'on a lark' to test its methods by monitoring the Wikipedia biographies of Vice-Presidential prospects.
The conclusion? If you'd been watching Wikipedia you might have gotten an advance tipoff of Friday's announcement that McCain was selecting Sarah Palin. 'At approximately 5 p.m. ET (Thursday), the company's analysts noticed a spike in the editing traffic to Palin's Wiki page, and that some of the same Wiki users appeared to be making changes to McCain's page.'
When McCain, a supposed foreign-policy expert, gave a speech on the crisis in Georgia, parts of it turned out to be cribbed from Wikipedia. (See this article from the Congressional Quarterly.) I guess the McCain staffers thought that, having used Wikipedia themselves, they should try to 'improve' it by editing the article about Palin."
The conclusion? If you'd been watching Wikipedia you might have gotten an advance tipoff of Friday's announcement that McCain was selecting Sarah Palin. 'At approximately 5 p.m. ET (Thursday), the company's analysts noticed a spike in the editing traffic to Palin's Wiki page, and that some of the same Wiki users appeared to be making changes to McCain's page.'
When McCain, a supposed foreign-policy expert, gave a speech on the crisis in Georgia, parts of it turned out to be cribbed from Wikipedia. (See this article from the Congressional Quarterly.) I guess the McCain staffers thought that, having used Wikipedia themselves, they should try to 'improve' it by editing the article about Palin."
