wikipedia

Baidu's William Chang: 'No reason for China to use Wikipedia'

William Chang, chief scientist leading Chinese search engine Baidu, said it's natural for Chinese to use Baidupedia (Baidu Baike) rather than the foreign Wikipedia.

"There's, in fact, no reason for China to use Wikipedia, a service based 'out there,'" Chang said at the WWW2008 conference in Beijing on Tuesday. "It's very natural for China to make its own products."

I agree that there's not always a reason for people to use global services, especially when what they deal with is primarily domestic. But with the wiki world, I think the value of … Read more

Webware 100 winner: Wikipedia

Wikipedia is a free online encyclopedia. Instead of being authored by a select group of editors, Wikipedia can be edited by anyone anywhere, and at any time. Wikipedia is available in a large number of languages and has entries about nearly everything. It's become so well known, people consider it an adjunct to Google as a place to find out more about almost any subject.

Each Wikipedia entry gets its own article as well as a built-in discussion in which users can talk about things they want to add or request changes from frequent contributors. There's also a … Read more

Buzz Out Loud 707: Space is cancelled

The Russians have canceled their space tourism program, because space is too serious to monetize. Also, Skype offers unlimited long-distance on...phones. VoIP is so dead. You heard it here first. In other news, Microsoft bonanza: Windows predictions, welcoming ethical hackers, and burning down your house. Listen now: Download today's podcast EPISODE 707

Skype offers unlimited long-distance plan http://www.reuters.com/article/companyNewsAndPR/idUSN2141013920080421

Google tops Microsoft, Apple in brand power http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9924273-7.html

Britannica makes content free with widgets, publisher registration http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9923867-7.html

Hackers cancel attack on CNN http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/144850/hackers_cancel_attack_on_cnn.html… Read more

Britannica makes content free with widgets, publisher registration

Before Wikipedia, there was Britannica.

Really, young whippersnappers, having an organized stack of the neatly bound heavy encyclopedia volumes on library shelves was a status-making must in many U.S. households as recently as the 1990s.

With the invention of the CD-ROM came Encarta, owned by Microsoft, which enabled easy cutting and pasting of encyclopedia content for students focused on speed and ease of research. It became a quick hit in school libraries yet the enemy of many teachers, who now had to add to their curriculum a lesson on the evils of cut-and-paste research, er, plagiarism.

The popularity of free, anyone-can-edit Wikipedia … Read more

Why I post censorship workarounds

Does posting censorship workarounds help the censors? That's the question I've been mulling for the last few days. I asked for your comments, and the verdict is in: Almost no one thinks we should keep these tricks to ourselves. I agree.

I started grappling with this question after I posted a now-defunct workaround for Mainlanders to access the still-blocked Chinese language Wikipedia. After a commenter posted the link on Sinobyte, I featured the link in the post. Then the commenter, Ted Chien, wrote me concerned that having the workaround posted would lead to the authorities blocking it. I … Read more

WikiFM glues Last.fm to Wikipedia artist biographies

Ever catch yourself hearing a new band on Last.fm, then popping open a new browser tab to look them up? WikiFM saves you a step by creating a two-frame page that keeps your Last.fm online radio player on one side, and an automatically populated Wikipedia biography page in the other.

The advantage of viewing Wikipedia's artist biographies over Last.fm's puny artist pages is the sheer depth of information (Tom Jones was born in Pontypridd, Wales?). The WikiFM page layout isn't the most elegant treatment we've seen (we've got FoxyTunes for that), but … Read more

Open-sourcing factual data, Wikipedia style

Bret Taylor, formerly of Google and now of FriendFeed, has a greater appreciation for the business development function. In a post today he wrote about the challenges of getting legal access to factual data--such as mapping, stock quotes, white pages, TV schedules, movie show times, and sports scores--for use in applications.

If you want to experiment with a new driving directions algorithm, it is infinitely more difficult than coming up with an algorithm; you have to hire a lawyer and a sign a contract with a company that collects that data in the country you are developing for.

He adds … Read more

China censorship workarounds: 'To post or not to post?'

This blog is often faced with the question of whether to post methods of accessing sites that are inaccessible from China because of government controls. I want to turn the question to readers, who I hope will have some opinions. Help me decide whether to reinstate a workaround for Chinese Wikipedia.

The argument for posting: I tend to believe it would be selfish to keep circumvention methods to myself when others who are less habitually engaged with technology news would also appreciate a way around the blocks. For instance, before the BBC News site was unblocked, I posted information on … Read more

Even the Chinese Wikipedia is now available through a relay

Commenter htchien points out that Chinese users can now reach the Chinese-language Wikipedia through the site's SSL-encrypted gateway.

The standard site, zh.wikipedia.org, is still blocked. (The URL I thought led there, cn.wikipedia.org, sent me to Yahoo China last time I tried.) But for now at least, the secure URL is functional and could open the big wiki to more participation from China.

Htchein is Ted (Hsiang-Tai) Chien, who lists a position as Secretary of Wikimedia Taiwan.

UPDATE: At Ted Chien's request, I have (at least temporarily) removed the secure URL from this post. His … Read more