Wikipedia, that online encyclopedia of unquestionable truth and veracity, ahem, has made it to 10 years. In Internet terms, that’s an ice age.

The ‘free content’ idea of Wikipedia.org was launched by Jimmy Wales in San Francisco back in 2001.

In his anniversary speech Mr Wales said to “I remember that first day. I clicked on edit and I wrote ‘Hello World’ and that was the beginning of Wikipedia and all the things that have come since then.”

Nupedia

The site concept originally came from online encyclopedia ‘Nupedia’ whose editors didn’t like the idea of letting users add or edit articles. Nupedia bit the dust back in 2003.

Web 2.0

Wikipedia was the very first ‘Web 2.0′ project in the sense that it allowed users to easily add content from their own web browser.

And how has it got on? Well Wikipedia now hosts over 3.5 million articles distributed over 23 million web pages in 270 languages. That’s a big website, and a fast growing one too – there are 1,100 new articles every day.

Despite my earlier comments Wikipedia is generally thought to be accurate, although the nature of user generated content is that some of it is bound – for a time at least – to be less than true.

Wikipedia itself warns: “Some articles on Wikipedia may contain significant factual inaccuracies, IE information that is verifiably wrong.”

Wikipedia has always been – and intends to stay – non-profit.

Do you use Wikipedia? Have you tried adding or editing any articles? Leave us a comment below.

Its one of the oldest web brands, and still the fifth most popular website in the world with 325 million monthly visitors.

But for some the unique story that is Wikipedia -”the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit” – is losing its allure.

Crowdsourcing
Wikipedia has long been celebrated and denegrated in equal measure. Its one of the longest running websites, and is a pioneer of crowdsourcing.

As we discussed early this year, crowdsourcing is when a company asks its readers / visitors / customers to come up with the solution to a problem.

Wikipedia does this by allowing anyone to create and edit content on the website.

A Reference point for other Websites

Whilst this has worked really well for a range of topics, it also means that some subjects are less thorough and less well researched. Content can be re-edited by anyone else, or moderated by a qualified editor.

Due to the huge numbers of people of have taken part, the massive amount of unique content, and the power of the wikipedia brand, wikipedia pages rank highly on Google for almost every popular search term. Whenever a website wants to provide an ‘official’ reference on almost any subject they link through to wikipedia to provide an explanation.

Losing Editors

According to the Wall Street Journal however, many people who have previously contributed to and edited the website are now leaving it permanently.

The WSJ says that this could “have significant implications for the brand of democratisation that Wikipedia helped to unleash over the Internet – the empowerment of the amateur”.

New people are joining and editing the website every day, although their numbers are smaller than those leaving.

Apparently wikipedia editors are deserting the site because of challenge of maintaining the quality and authority of the website.  Stress involved in maintaining the endeavour can be substantial. According to one researcher, “many people are getting burnt out when they have to debate about the contents of certain articles again and again”.

Do you like – and trust – the content of wikipedia? Or do you tend to find its information biased and limited? Have you any experience editing or maintaining content on wikipedia? Leave us a comment below.

Phorm, the online advertising firm, is finally making noises about going live with their controversial advertising platform. Phorm allows advertisers to target users based on their online behaviour.

We’ve discussed behavioural targeting – and whether this is a breach of user privacy – before, and we (I say we but mean me don’t I!) hold the view that it’s worth giving up a little bit of privacy in order to get a tailored online experience. I believe that people distrust behavioural targeting due to two misunderstandings. First, that they think that it is the online equivalent of getting direct mail through the post. And second, they believe that online privacy breaches means the lost of personal data such as bank account details.

Phorm are trying to dispel public fears in a public meeting next week. Anti phorm campaigners claim that the service breaches UK data interception laws. And according to the BBC, the European Commission have even started legal action against Britain over the platform. Despite this, the company actually received official clearance from the Home Office, and the police – who investigated BT’s trial of the technology – have now closed the case.

Phorm CEO Kent Ertugrul told BBC News: “We have been supported or endorsed by all of the leading stakeholders… Ofcom, the Information Commissioner’s Office, the Home Office, leading privacy advocates like Simon Davies, the advertising industry and publishers have all backed our service,” he said.

The official line on Phorm technology is that it ‘trawls’ websites visited by users whose ISPs are using the service, and matches keywords on those websites to the users’ profiles. The user is then targeted with ads that are tailored to their profile.

The initial trials were with BT, but Talk Talk and Virgin have also confirmed their interest. Following all the negative publicity, ISPs have to weigh up any revenue per user the system might generate with the loss of those customers whose fears cause them to migrate away.

The government for its part has given the system a green light but only if users have given consent and have the ability to opt out.

Privacy groups The Open Rights Group and the Foundation for Information Policy Research are still firmly opposed to use of the technology.

Our view – that it is a lack of understanding of behavioural targeting, and the belief that somehow users will suffer a breach of their personal data is what is creating the resistance to the service – is shared by the CEO Kent Ertugrul. He said:  “I am surprised by the fact, after it has been repeatedly explained how the technology works, they seem to be very keen on misunderstanding what it does.”

What do you think? Would you allow yourself to be behaviourally targeted if it meant you saw relevant ads? Or are you an website builder and advertiser who would like to make use of the technology?  Leave us a comment below.

16.04.09 Update: According to Web User, privacy campaigners have cheered the news that Amazon are planning to deploy technology that prevents Phorm from gathering information about users whilst they are visiting  the Amazon website. Jim Killock of the Open Rights Group (ORG) said: “By choosing to block the contentious online advertising system from scanning its web pages, [Amazon has] taken the positive choice to protect their users’ privacy and their own brands”.

Phorm for its part responded with a statement which read: “there is a process in place to allow publishers to contact Phorm and opt out of the system, but we do not comment on individual cases”.

Round 1 (or is it Round 99?) to the privacy lobby?

22.04.09 Update: According to ComputerShopper magazine, Wikipedia has now decided to opt out of Phorm. An email sent from Wikimedia (the organisation that runs Wikipedia) to Phorm stated “we consider the scanning and profiling of our visitors’ behaviour by a third party to be an infringement on their privacy.”

Round 2 all done then!

28.04.09 Update: Phorm has launched a website to take on critics. Kent Ertugrul says this is because it has been relentlessly under fire from “a small, but dedicated band of ‘privacy pirates’ who appear determined to harm our company”.  Phorm are complaining that privacy activists are targeting MPs, journalists and regulators to try and “distort the truth and misrepresent Phorm’s technology”.

2-1?