A wiki is a publishing tool that allows for input and modifications by all users.

"To do a successful public wiki it really has very little to do with the software and a lot to do with people," said Wales.

Wales does warn that newspapers shouldn’t use wikis if they simply wish to provide cheap content and cut costs. Instead they can use wikis to attract specific readers they can’t especially reach out to, or spark discussions upon a topic they maybe don’t want to officially cover.

“If they think of a segment of the community that it isn't serving well and which it can't serve well because the economics don't work out then this new method of production means they can actually provide a new service.”

Newspapers’ main concern is that of online vandalism, since all users can freely modify postings. Wales said he was working on varying solutions, including a flagging system which could save the ‘best’ version of a news piece.

"It still allows open editing but you could also surface the best version of an article rather than the most recent if something is vandalism prone,” he said.

It seems wikis still won’t be widely used in newspapers for some time to come, until bugs are rooted out and there are efficient solutions against user abuse. When wikis do settle in though, they will change newspaper websites’ online landscape, participating to the convergence of user-submitted content and traditional newspaper content.


Also, Wikio secured $5.3 million in its first round of funding, thanks to Lightspeed Venture Partners along with Gemini Israel Funds. Wikio indexes blogs and media sites, and allows users to rank the news. The news aggregating website claims one million monthly readers so far, and is looking to expand its versions into more languages and countries.

Source: journalism.co.uk – paidcontent.org