Is Wikipedia the Next Google ?

http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?&range=3m&size=medium&compare_sites=&y=r&url=wikipedia.org#top

wikipedia seems to have levelled off. Check hitwise for more accurate data.

BTW,this was discussed on WW a few weeks ago.

Steve does not convince me. I do think Wikipedia has the chance to replace ODP and About.com together but I see it in a supporting role like ODP remains not an end unto itself.

Frankly Answers.com could take the throne.

If everyone writes and can change it, it makes me wonder if the information is good quality or not.

OK, I almost spit soda on the screen.

Comparing a user editted encyclopedia of the web (a slow one at that) to the equivalent of the internet phone book is ludicrous. I can just see it now, my competitors and I can keep editting each other out of the wiki all day long, oh yes, that's just going to replace google.

Yes, the Wiki is more powerful than DMOZ but the opportunity for abuse is much worse.

Please, Wikipedia is a proper niche tool, where Google is an umbrella for locating anything on the internet. Google also has a UI that works. Wikipedia is rapidly in need of a better way of presenting pretty much everything.

Why would anyone read Rubel's blog other than for a laugh ?

The Wikipedia gives me answers to factual and geographic and historical questions far faster than Google. I don't necessarily agree or take as gospel its articles but the links out to other resources from Wikipedia will be much more concentrated than what you can get out of a first or even fifth search on Google.

The editing mechanism needs to be fixed (there have to be authority editors in categories, some kind of peer review has to be instituted), as Wikipedia has outgrown its flat editing structure (all editors are equal).

But frankly the Wikipedia is the best thing I've seen come out of the internet since email. Google at the end of the day is just another search engine.

For Wikihaters though don't miss Andrew Orlowski's series over at The Register.

Why Wikipedia isn't like Linux | The Register:

I'm relieved to see other people are also wary of information that they get from a source whose organizing principle appears to be that twenty jackasses make an expert.

Although after reading your take on Wikipedia, it appears that the actual situation is worse - the output produced by twenty jackasses plus one expert is indistinguishable from what would be produced by twenty-one jackasses.

The odd thing is, many of the jackasses that you angered really should know better.

They are huge fans of the most conspicuous success story in the history of Internet-based collaboration: the Linux kernel. Which is not produced by a radically-democratic value-neutral mob, but rather by a pyramidal hierarchy of maintainers - experts, so judged by their peers - who exercise strong control over what code is allowed in the kernel tree.

It's worth reflecting on the reason Wiki-kernel would never fly: code actually has to work, not merely be written.

Why start dredging this up now... unless he is stuck for something to write! There is no camparision between the two at all and articles like he wrote about Wikipedia are served up to drum up a little publicity as in this thread (IMO).

I use Wikipedia and encourage my 12 year old daughter to do the same, many subjects with much updated information is a boon to her studies and homework.

If everyone writes and can change it, it makes me wonder if the information is good quality or not.

Ditto. I rarely count on anything Wikipedia says without getting it backed up by other sources.