Wikipedia rocks, I think pretty much everyone agrees on that.
From a South African perspective, Wikipedia is even more valuable as it has the power to bring a tremendous amount of knowledge to people who would otherwise have little or no access to such empowering information. This is particularly true as Wikipedia becomes increasingly and more effectively available through a mobile platform because as we know, Africa loves cell phones.
Many people are surprised to learn that an amazing resource like Wikipedia can survive as a non profit organisation driven mainly by volunteers. Of course everyone needs cash and Wikipedia is no exception. Recently they started a fund raiser often with matching donations. People, companies and anonymous donors can match all donations for a period of time. Its pretty sweet and from where I’m sitting they’re not doing too badly. They’re on about $310 000 today and I’m sure they were less than half that a week ago.
Even if it’s only a Dollar, a Pound or indeed a few Ronds, go and help make Wikipedia just that little bit better. the value that it carries for Africa is enormous.
You can actually see a live list of donors here. If you go there quick quick you should see me :)
Read all about Wikipedia here.
Donate here.
Peace
Quirk is a marketing agency. Born digital. Driven by creativity. Disciplined by results.
A blog on the convergence of marketing and technology from the minds of Quirk
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http://www.spin.com/features/everybodystalkingabout/2006/08/060802_colbert/
Although i agree that Wikipedia is fantastic and a true web 2.0 organic collaborative site, I don’t agree that it is a wonder from a South African perspective.
Internet penetration in South Africa is still really low at a little over 7% of the total population having access to it. The lion share of this is through work connections so evening and weekend access is even further limited. 3G is the way forward - however with the high cost at present this is still isolated to business use and those well heeled individuals out there who can afford it.
SA's low internet growth is actually really sad. In the past 5 years our internet usage in terms of unique users increased by 50%. To put this into perspective Egypt’s growth over the same period has been 933%, and Morocco's growth an astounding 3500%!
How about Australia? The internet penetration there is just shy of 70%... The lack of affordable broadband and flat rated dial-up access makes it difficult for many South Africans to use the Internet and Wikipedia as a result too.
Hi Johan
I agree with your comments on the sorry state of South African Internet but that doesn't detract from the potential Wikipedia has for South Africa. Take for example the MobilED initiative which aims to deliver Wikipedia via text to speech over a mobile device. Child will SMS a query to the service, the service will call the child back and read the contents of the article.
Who needs Internet?
Who needs the internet? Everyone. You do not need access to the Internet in order to use the Internet. Even MobileEd will be useless without the Internet.
Yes the potential is enormous indeed but the telecoms infrastructure in SA and our leaders slow procrastinating ways makes me wonder when the masses in SA will really benefit from the internet and what it has to offer.
On Wikipedia, have you guys seen the new search engine to be launched by the founder of Wikipedia, called Wikiasari. It will use the same user driven model as the differentiator and unlike its cousin this venture is set out to make profit through advertising (hence the .com domain rather than the .org). www.wikiasari.com
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Posted by the salami from killarney on 2006/12/27