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Holtz Communications + Technology

Shel Holtz
Communicating at the Intersection of Business and Technology
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Could community wikis be the tipping point?

At the New Communications Forum last week, pretty much everybody agreed that blogs were no fad, but wikis evoked a less enthusiastic response. Some conference participants shrugged them off as too technical and complex for the average user. Even Wikipedia is revised most frequently by a relatively small group of regulars.

Nobody argues that wikis make it easier to generate web content than working in HTML or a web authoring app like Dreamweaver. All that’s missing from wikis to get people using them is real motivation. A company called Wetpaint just may have found that motivation.

If you own a dog, odds are you love that dog. (Mine’s name is Sasha. She’s a shepherd mix who is as dumb as a post and the sweetest creature alive.) People who are passionate about dogs are likely to take that last step into wikis in order to contribute to WikiFido one of the community wikis Wetpaint has created. Here, you can add your $.02 to community-written topics like becoming a dog owner, dog breeds, puppy training, taking care of Fido and a list of dog resources. You can also add your dog’s picture to the “My Dog is Cuter than Your Dog” or “Ugliest Dog” pages.

WikiFido is just one of the wikis Wetpaint has set up. According to a Seattle Post-Intelligencer article, Wetpaint’s other wikis cover cancer, the XBox 360, Democrats, Republicans, and bird flu. According to the article, the venture capital-backed company operates under a principle that will be familiar to blog readers:

The most important concept behind Wetpaint is the idea that groups of people working together and sharing information can create more compelling online content than individuals. In other words, two dozen poodle owners will have more interesting things to say than just one. Wetpaint dubs this the “collective wisdom of crowds.”

I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if WikiFido takes off. I would think the XBox and cancer wikis would also have great chances for success, given the numbers of people with intense interest in the topic and the belief that they have knowledge to share.

My only regret is that a startup came up with these ideas instead of a company. Why shouldn’t Purina have created WikiFido? Why couldn’t Merck establish WikiCancer? Sadly, the answer is obvious: The leaders of these organizations are too busy fretting about the potential risks new media poses—or dismissing wikis as a fad or too technical—instead of innovating uses that are low risk and have the potential for high value.

Now it’s just a matter of seeing if wikis targeting topics about which individuals have passion is enough to nudge them over the technical hurdles and get them engaged. I’m betting it will.

Comments
  • 1.But of course the challenge with a corporate creating the wiki, which I too would applaud, is that there is always going to be a faint odor of 'marketing BS' attached to any one from the company who contributes material.

    Plus, there is always the vague fear that negative comments or comments not complimentary to the wiki's owner would be censored.

    There is a very real psychological principle of 'the third man', which means that if *I* say I'm fabulous (which of course I am) you are less inclined to believe me than if, say, Neville says I'm fabulous. A non-attached third party will always have more credibility.

    Lee | March 2006 | Adelaide Hills, Australia

  • 2.In case you may not have seen it yet, over at Shel Holtz's weblog, you will be able to read an interesting post around the subject of Could Community Wikis Be the Tipping Point? where he is actually mentioning how many people seem to be having many different issues with regards to collaborating further in different Wikis because they feel that they are not as intuitive as you would expect. All the other way around, far "too technical and complex for the average user". While I certainly…

  • 3.I see your point, Lee, but if it's merely hosted/sponsored by the business, then the branding is carried through unobtrusively. This actually has been done well; just rarely. King Arthur's Flour hosts a message board at http://www.bakingcircle.com where people share their recipes, and I don't believe it's ever caused the company a problem or led users to feel their forum is tainted by the sponsorship of a corporation. It's not a big leap from that to a wiki where dog lovers share tips for raising a puppy. Of course, companies would need to undertake such efforts with clear policies and guidelines about how much they'll interfere, and they would need to post their policies so nobody is caught off-guard when they're enforced.

    Shel | March 2006 | Concord, CA

  • 4.I really, really want to get my hands on wetpaint. We have a community project in progress and what gets in the way is the quirky wiki UI that has characterised development to date. I won't call out our current provider as they've been incredibly supportive and recognise the issues though they have no immediate fix. There's a lot of annoying little things that users will baulk at.

    Wetpaint seems to have our particular gripes worked out. It would transform our ability to reach the target audience.

    Dennis Howlett | March 2006 | Spain

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