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Power to the People: Do it Yourself Content Distribution (16 Jun 2005) Dissatisfied with a-few-sizes-fit-all commercial content, open information communities harness technology to create more content and more choices for themselves. A compelling example is Wikipedia, a free online encyclopedia created entirely by users who are part of an "open-source content community." Since its birth in 2001, Wikipedia has grown to include more than 1.1 million entries. While the absence of editors, fact-checkers, and control of any kind makes it difficult for many to accept it as a reference work, Wikipedia is nonetheless a remarkable phenomenon that shows users can create and distribute content themselves. "It is likely that information communities will become more pervasive—and more powerful—for the same reason that user innovation communities are: the costs of diffusing information are decreasing as computing and communications technologies improve," von Hippel says. Article URL: http://www.econtentmag.com/Articles/ArticleReader.aspx?ArticleID=8067&IssueId=218 Read 6 more articles from Econtent sorted by date, popularity, or title. Next Article: Chasing Down the Social Meaning of DeCSS: Investigating the Internet Posting of DVD Circumvention Software
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