• San Francisco Chronicle, Friday, July 20, 2007 11 AM

Sure, Wikipedia has its problems, but Jimmy Wales' wiki-based encyclopedia is a phenomenon that's opened the possibilities for future wiki products and services. Craigslist founder Craig Newmark is a fan: "What Jimmy has done through Wikipedia is change the way people write history. Before, it was guys with guns, now it's anyone."

Of course, there are inherent problems with inviting the public to create content -- from misinformed postings to slander to outright lying -- something both men face with their respective sites. The pair has met on several occasions to discuss these and other issues, including the potential for future collaboration. Wikipedia and other wiki sites also have their critics: "I don't trust Wikipedia and I certainly wouldn't trust an open-source search engine that is shaped by anonymous people," says critic Andrew Keen, referring to Wales' next project, the wiki search engine Wikia. Wales says that is a starting point, not an ending point."

But what does that say about a wiki-based search engine? Web users want nothing if not comprehensiveness from the services they use. Meanwhile, where's Wikia? It's been six months since it was supposed to launch. A text version of the site should be ready by the end of the year.

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