Give the Gift of Knowledge

Of course, Wikipedia must always be used with caution. I'm the biggest junkie I know, but it's still always best to cross-reference your Wikipedia research with more robust, less manipulatable resources. Here endeth the lesson.

Posted by the salami from killarney on 2006/12/27

http://www.spin.com/features/everybodystalkingabout/2006/08/060802_colbert/

Posted by Cath on 2006/12/29

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.

Posted by Johan Bosini on 2007/01/02

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?

Posted by Rob on 2007/01/02

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.

Posted by rafiq on 2007/01/02

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

Posted by Johan Bosini on 2007/01/03