Even if you are deeply involved in Web 2.0, a summary of what has happened lately is always useful. Serena Altschul’s report for CBS News is the kind of video that can make you up-to-date in only 7 minutes! In that film, she reminds us of Wikipedia’s challenges and achievements. She shows why Citizendium is different but also interviews a person from Encyclopaedia Britannica who insist on its primacy. The journalist succeeded in interviewing for one single report: Ward Cunningham, the inventor of wikis ; Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia co-founder ; Larry Sanger, Citizendium founder; a person from Encyclopaedia Britannica, Theodore Popus.
First, the documentary reminds us of how major a phenomenon Wikipedia is: five million articles, a traffic doubling every 4 months. Jimmy Wales explains why Nupedia (Wikipedia’s ancestor) failed while a Wikipedian shares his opinion about the reason for Wikipedia’s popularity: contributing is not work, it’s play. The film makes it also quite clear that, surprisingly enough, the eldest of the 3 encyclopedias, Britannica, is perhaps the most modern, technically speaking, with online animations and videos. (more…)
