Wikicities
: The Wall Street Journal writes up Jimmy Wales’ Wikicities business (another free link). It’s just starting so it’s hard to tell whether this will work as well as Wikipedia. I think that wikis work best when they try to gather the ongoing wisdom of the crowds on lasting topics; they work when they hit a critical mass of interest, people, contributions, and time. That’s why I remain dubious that Wikinews will work; it’s too transient: By the time enough people swarm around a topic to add their collective wisdom, the world has moved on. Wikipedia did, in fact, do a good job collecting news during the tsunami, but that had enough interest, people, and time to make it work. WikiCities is a third model: A portal where people can create free, ad-supported special-interest wikis. On the one hand, I wonder whether people won’t just do that on their own sites, in their own communities. On the other hand, perhaps special-interest wikis need a portal to gather that critical mass of contributors. We’ll see…
