Web 2.0 Training

Wikipedia was born in 2001 of the idea that everyone should have access  to the sum of all knowledge. Founder Jimmy Wales employed one programmer and thousands of volunteers around the world to build the online perpetually evolving encyclopedia. Today Wikipedia has about 23 employees, millions of contributors and, in fact, recently received a $2 million grant from Google, Inc. Wikipedia uses the free licensing model so that the public may freely use the compiled information. With about 1.4 billion page views monthly, Wikipedia is one of the top 10 sites in the world. Despite what its founder calls a "chaotic model" that is subject to routine vandalism, the Wikipedia community has managed to maintain accuracy and neutrality in its content. At this point Wikipedia contains more than 3,000,000 articles, and it is growing daily.

We asked students and teachers on the UC Berkley campus about their Wikipedia habits and found out that they use it — quite frequently — but hesitate to admit it.

Google, Inc., one of the Internet’s most profitable companies, reportedly is giving $2 million to Wikimedia to help further develop the popular, volunteer-driven encyclopedia, Wikipedia, along with other projects. That’s nice, but Bobbie Johnson of Technology Blog asks, “why?”

Google gives $2 million to Wikimedia … were Google and Wikipedia separated at birth? … Wikipedia’s next big move … yellow journalism is thriving on the internet, says this writer who blames Wikipedia … and now, Wikipedia text books.

Wikipedia Weekly

The Wikipedia Revolution

Blog.Jimmy Wales

Wikimedia Foundation blog

Erik Moller’s Blog

Citation Needed: Collecting Wikipedia’s finest prose

Search-Engine Land

Tech Blips