Looking for answers? Ask a wiki

Wikipedia, the world’s largest online encyclopaedia, came in for a hammering in Saturday’s New Zealand Herald. Given that its content is made up entirely by its users supplying and editing content in real time (who may or may not be experts on the topic they’re writing about), a strong ‘tread with caution’ theme came through.

Fair enough, but I personally find wikis generally, and Wikipedia itself, an informative, and often entertaining, mine of information. What’s most interesting to me is how widely ‘pop culture’ is commented on. Wikipedia provides a ‘potted history’ of current opinions and facts across a wide range of topics of relevance to me as a marketer. And because the entries are updated in real time by any number of contributors, it’s a great way of cutting through the promotional and other spiel ‘official websites’ usually contain. For example, a search using the word ‘Google’ brings up a wealth of information about the company, including the following summary information:

Type Public (NASDAQ: GOOG), (LSE: GGEA)
Founded Menlo Park, California (September 27, 1998)
Headquarters Mountain View, California, USA
Key people
Eric E. Schmidt, CEO/Director
Sergey Brin, Technology President
Larry E. Page, Products President
George Reyes, CFO
Industry Internet
Products See list of Google services and tools
Revenue $6.138 Billion USD (2005)
Net income $1.465 Billion USD (2005)
Employees 9,378 (September 30, 2006)[1]
Website www.google.com

Fantastic! Instant info. What a great time-saver. It also provides a large number of references, recommended further reading and external links. I absolutely agree its contents should not be taken at face value, but corroborated from other sources as appropriate. But then this goes for any published material doesn’t it? The links within entries are particularly useful, making Wikipedia something of a refined search engine – again, helpful to marketers and researchers.

An extract from the entry on Wikipedia itself reads: Bill Thompson, a well known technology writer, commented that the debate is probably symptomatic of much learning about information which is happening in society today, arguing that:

“It is the same with search engine results. Just because something comes up in the top 10 on MSN Search or Google does not automatically give it credibility or vouch for its accuracy or importance… One benefit that might come from the wider publicity that Wikipedia is currently receiving is a better sense of how to evaluate information sources… The days when everything you saw on a screen had been carefully filtered, vetted, edited and checked are long gone. Product placement, advertorials and sponsorship are all becoming more common. An educated audience is the only realistic way to ensure that we are not duped, tricked, fleeced or offended by the media we consume, and learning that online information sources may not be as accurate as they pretend to be is an important part of that education. I use the Wikipedia a lot. It is a good starting point for serious research, but I would never accept something that I read there without checking.”

I’m with you Bill.