Yahoo! to support Wikipedia

April 8th, 2005 • Related • Filed Under

Yahoo Inc.’s search engine division will supply hardware and other resources to the Wikimedia Foundation Inc. to support that nonprofit organization’s free Wikipedia online encyclopedia. Yahoo’s gesture comes with no strings attached.

Wikipedia is a free encyclopedia that anyone can edit, which I personally think highlights the potential for sharing information on the internet. Its English-language version now has over half a million articles, according to Wikipedia. Since its launch in 2001, about 40,000 people have contributed content to Wikipedia, which has versions in more than 100 languages.

Wikipedia stated that that their traffic is doubling “..doubling every few months.”

Yahoo Search also will feature abstracts of Wikipedia content at the top of relevant search results in the form of “shortcuts,” which are either factual information or links to factual information. Yahoo’s shortcuts are intended to give users the answer they’re looking for
right on the search results page, so users don’t have to browse away to other Web sites and scour them for the desired information.

Nice one Yahoo! - good to see the big boys helping the smaller companies come along.

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About the Author

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Everton is based in London and has worked in the internet and mobile space for over ten years now, and before that worked in corporate strategy and consulting. He has a degree in Economics from Cambridge University, and currently runs the Portal and online operations for one of the largest ISPs in the UK. He also writes for Windows 7 News.

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