When I read Steve Rubel write that Wikipedia was a threat to Google I thought he was being outlandish and ridiculous. I wouldn’t normally point out something like this, and I hope Steve isn’t offended, but for someone with so much influence, I think he needed to think twice before making such a claim.
Here’s his post: The Wikipedia threat to Google.
Why was Steve wrong?
Wikipedia has alluded to the notion that it is in a cash crunch. Wikipedia out of money?
- Steve said ” . . . the Google search engine feeds on Wikipedia to supply much of its most relevant results.” This makes no sense logically since “relevance” is only given to Wikipedia by Google in his example. Without Google, Wikipedia would have far less traffic and influence.
- Steve said “Google appears to be losing its focus on search.” Wrong again. The YouTube acquisition wasn’t moving Google away from search, it was strengthening it. YouTube had the largest library of SEARCHABLE videos on the Internet. Now, Google is the leader of video search.
- Steve said “Google is aware of its dependency on Wikipedia.” Again, I think this is completely wrong. Google is not dependent on Wikipedia for anything. Google existed without Wikipedia and Wikipedia is becoming more popular because Google assigns relevance to Wikipedia.
How Google is Crushing Wikipedia
If you were a company like Google with huge pockets and you saw the value of Wikipedia, how could you buy it on the cheap?
- Recognize that it’s a non-profit with limited capital resources.
- Assign special relevance to Wikipedia articles so its traffic goes through the roof.
- Buy it on the cheap because its going under due to an expensive influx of Google-fed traffic.
Conspiracy theory? Probably. But, it’s something to think about. I think Steve needs to write a new post called The Google threat to Wikipedia because it sounds like Google is actually giving it problems.
In Reality
Someone will step in whether Wikipedia gets bought or better funded. Question is . . . who will it be?
3 comments ↓
[...] Talk about making a post on your blog to raise a ruckus, Steven Rubel has gone off his rocker by thinking that Wikipedia is a threat to Google! Like Russ Page said, without Google many internet browsers probably wouldn’t even know Wikipedia exist3e. I work with clients all the time who are brand new to the internet, eCommerce, search engines, and even copy and paste. However, every single one of them knows what Google is. I guarantee that, if I did a survey to ask normal internet users what Wikipedia was, the high majority of them would have no idea. Sure, Wikipedia is getting more and more recognition, but a threat to Google? Yeah right! [...]
Well put, buddy. However, ever since I saw that Wikipedia would be launching a browser, I’ve been curious to use it.
[...] Wikipedia a threat to Google? Rubel was dead wrong. When I read Steve Rubel write that Wikipedia was a threat to Google I thought he was being outlandish and ridiculous. (Read More). [...]
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