Wikidisintermediation
Having written for the Encyclopaedia Britannica many moons ago, and having been paid in a set of volumes that seemed in danger of reaching across the street, I watched with interest as encyclopaedias got disintermediation both by CD-based technologies and now by things like Wikipedia. Jimmy Wales, who founded Wikipedia, was in the ‘Philanthropreneurs’ session I moderated Saturday afternoon. As someone who uses Wikipedia constantly, I wondered what he would have made of our publisher’s reaction to Wikipedia references in our new book, The Power of Unreasonable People. They see the Wiki thing as inherently untrustworthy.
True, I have come across some bizarre entries, but I seem to remember reading somewhere that in terms of overall accuracy, Wikipedia now rivals the Encyclopaedia Britannica. More importantly, it’s available at a few clicks of the mouse, it’s much more up-to-date and it links you out effortlessly to a bunch of other useful stuff. Wales noted that the process of disintermediation has only just started. Gulp.
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