[Search-l] ChennaiOnline - "Wikipedia planning search engine"

[Seth Finkelstein]

[We all know it's Wikia The Corporation, not Wikipedia, I'm just
forwarding the article for people's interest]

http://www.chennaionline.com/colnews/newsitem.asp?NEWSID=%7bD86A39D3-BCFD-47B7-A594-A9A5874348D4%7d&CATEGORYNAME=TECH

Wikipedia planning search engine

 Chennai, April 11: As part of efforts to widen its reach and showcase
 the power of 'wikis', online encyclopaedia Wikipedia is planning a
 search engine that is intended to rival that of Google.

 "Yes, Wikimedia Foundation is planning an open search engine that
 thrives on the knowledge of users. The search engine is in its early
 stage," said Kiruba Shankar, an editor of Wikipedia here and a
 well-known blogger.

 Shankar, who runs a web development firm, was an organiser of the
 recent Wikicamp-Unconference where all participants could interact
 freely in an informal session.

 "Wikicamp was India's first real event devoted to wikis," he said
 referring to the websites and collaborative software that allow people
 to add, remove, edit or change content.

 "The response was better than expected. We expected around 100 people
 to be part of it, but over 350 turned up. It greatly helped that
 Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, flew in to attend the event,"
 Shankar said.

 The main reason for organising the event was to showcase the power of
 wikis. Shankar strongly feels that the wiki is a severely
 underestimated power tool and there are excellent uses that people are
 ignorant about. "The event helped in highlighting those advantages."

 Many techies knew about Wikipedia but quite a few did not know how to
 edit a wiki. The event had a workshop on how to edit wikis. "Many
 corporates have installed wikis as part of their intranet to
 disseminate information internally," he said. (Our Correspondent)

-- 
Seth Finkelstein  Consulting Programmer  http://sethf.com/
Infothought blog - http://sethf.com/infothought/blog/
Interview: http://sethf.com/essays/major/greplaw-interview.php