Socially Speaking » collaborative http://waxxi.us/blog a blog about the social side of technology: social networks, interactive podcasts, and more Fri, 27 Jul 2007 19:52:00 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 Jimmy Wales Means Business: a Challenge to Google, Yahoo! http://waxxi.us/blog/2007/03/10/jimmy-wales-means-business-a-challenge-to-google-yahoo/ http://waxxi.us/blog/2007/03/10/jimmy-wales-means-business-a-challenge-to-google-yahoo/#comments Sat, 10 Mar 2007 16:28:48 +0000 Tracy Sheridan http://waxxi.us/blog/2007/03/10/jimmy-wales-means-business-a-challenge-to-google-yahoo/ In a report from Tokyo yesterday, Reuters declared, “the online collaboration responsible for Wikipedia plans to build a search engine to rival those of Google Inc. and Yahoo, Inc.”

Well, we could’ve told you that. :)

Jimmy Wales came out, fully loaded, with some fighting words — or about as peaceful as fighting words can get:

The idea that Google has some edge because they’ve got super-duper rocket scientists may be a little antiquated now.

He went on to describe Google and Yahoo! as “black boxes” that won’t reveal how they rank search results. And, that collaborative search technology could transform the structure of the Internet.

What this translates to is Wikia, the for-profit sister site to Wikipedia, will take great lessons from the non-profit’s core. Wikia Search, then, is a place where:

…users could work together to improve search engines, just as Wikipedia users had tweaked and rewritten articles on the sprawling encyclopedia.

Wikia as a whole hosts collaborative community publishing sites, and is supported by advertising. Examples of some of these communities include 24, the Muppet Wiki (one of Jimmy’s favorites), and the currently featured collaboration, Gears of War.

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