Unhappy with the inaccuracies of the online encyclopaedia he set up, Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger has announced that he will be launching an alternative to the free online reference this week.
The free spin-off site, sporting the rubbish name of ‘Citizendium,’ will introduce user registration and editorial controls for user-submitted articles in an attempt to filter out pesky trolls, biased contributors and Tourettian troublemakers.
“Wikipedia is amazing. It has grown in breadth and depth, and the articles are remarkably good given the system that is in place. I merely think that we can do better,” Sanger said.
“There are a number of problems with the system that can be solved, and by solving those we can end up with an even better massive encyclopaedia,” he added.
An invite-only pilot version of the non-profit site will launch this week, although there’s no news about a full release.
The rise of Wikipedia
In five short years, the advert-free Wikipedia has become one of the most popular research tools on the Web, boasting more than 2 million articles in 229 nationalities, with Nielsen NetRatings registering more than 33 million unique visitors in September this year.
Such is the explosive growth of the site, this figure represents a whopping 162 percent rise from the same period last year.
With anyone able to write and edit content on Wikipedia, the site has been accused of unreliability, with controversial topics and some political entries being bogged down by never-ending disputes from warring factions.
Sanger has accused Wikipedia of failing to keep a grip on its writers and editors, commenting that the latest articles don’t represent a consensus view, just a reflection of what the most persistent ‘posters’ say.”
Larry Sanger hopes to introduce some order to his rival site by introducing editors, volunteer ‘constables’ and personal accountability which will see people using real names.
Although the site will be open to submissions from anyone, editors will be empowered to authorise articles with “constables” charged with wading into rows and asking, “why can’t we all just get along?” Or something .
With backing from an unnamed foundation, Citizendium hopes to evolve with public participation, growing from a “fork” of the open-source code of Wikipedia, with new content replacing existing content until it grows into a new compendium of its own.
The Citizendium Project
Toward a New Compendium of Knowledge
Sling is developing software to play their video on Symbian mobile phones.
The current Pocket PC version of the SlingPlayer Mobile software application is currently available only in the U.S. and Canada. The Symbian OS version will be made available in select European and Asian countries during Q4 and will extend availability to the US shortly thereafter.
A new survey of over 1,000 early adopters and mobile phone business users discovered little enthusiasm for mobile video but a keen interest in using handsets as navigation aids.
Commenting on the low uptake of value-added 3G services, Chamberlain suggested that customers were reluctant to part with their hard-earned just to watch juddery little video clips of “yesterday’s ballgame” on the squinty displays of smartphones.
If the findings of the In-Stat survey prove to be representative of the population as a whole, it looks like mobile phone carriers are going to have to shuffle around their ranges of phones currently being offered, and give GPS-enabled phones a bigger push (or look to include more mobile navigation apps like Google Maps).
Yahoo execs have pressed the flesh and struck up a deal with CBS owned-and-operated television stations to exclusively broadcast local news videos online.
“Local news has become one of the most important pieces of a user’s online news experience, and this agreement brings some of the best local TV journalism to the millions of Yahoo News users,” said Scott Moore, head of news and information, Yahoo Media Group.
Mobile phone giant Vodafone has unwrapped its winter collection of phones which it hopes will work their way into Santa’s sack.
The full range adds up to no less than 24 Vodafone Live with 3G handsets featuring onboard mobile TV; 14 Vodafone Live with 3G handsets featuring Vodafone Radio DJ music service and six 3G broadband handsets – sourced from Motorola and Samsung – delivering HSDPA.
By comparison, existing 3G networks can only muster up a comparably sloth-like rate of just 384 kilobits per second.
There’s bound to be lots of these stories floating around the Valley, as companies started getting bought for large sums of money. It’s going to be the equivalent of being/claiming to be the fifth Beatle.
Living what he was building, “Armed with a video camera, Mr. Karim documented much of YouTube’s early life.”
It wasn’t quite ‘citizen journalism,’ but a Fox News cameraman first on the scene of last week’s small plane crash into a New York Upper East Side apartment building managed to stream live footage to his TV network using a standard Windows Treo smartphone.
Not surprisingly, the live picture quality won’t be kick-starting a bumper blow-out of Fox’s broadcast cameras on eBay quite yet, but it’s a great example of how mobile technology is making newsgathering faster and open to more people.
Nokia has announced the winning entries in the Forum Nokia S60 3rd Edition Challenge global developer competition, dishing out a cool €100,000 in prizes to winning mobile applications developers.
Quickoffice Premier 4 scooped up Best Enterprise Application, with the product allowing users to open, view and edit Microsoft Office documents on the move.
InfoTalk Corporation’s Music Finder grabbed the honours for Best Mobile Music Application. The program provides a speedy way to use search for music files using voice commands, with users able to speak a song title, artist’s name or playlist in response to an audio prompt instead of scrolling through zillions of MP3s.