Monday, November 30, 2009

Will a Lack of Editors Affect Wikipedia Accuracy?

From WebPro News

Wikipedia is a very useful site for anyone looking to find information on any given topic. Chances are that you have used it for research at one time or another. Even if you don't start by going directly to Wikipedia, results from the site are often at the top of search results in Google, and you'll get there anyway. 

Those Google results likely play a significant role, but Wikipedia's popularity is as great as ever. Right now, it is cited as the fifth most popular site in the entire world. It gets 325 million monthly visitors, and the number of visitors grew 20% in the 12 months ending in September, according to the Wall Street Journal, citing data from comScore. 

The WSJ also says that the number of editors Wikipedia has is dwindling. They say thatWikipedia lost over 49,000 editors in the first three months of 2009 alone. During the same period the previous year, Wikipedia lost only 4,900 (WSJ attributes these figures to Spanish researcher Felipe Ortega. His thesis on the subject can be found here [pdf]). 

The accuracy of information on Wikipedia has always been something to be leery of, simply because of the open format of it. If you give the public access to things, some people will abuse it. Even if their intentions aren't bad, they may still just post inaccurate information. Wikipedia's has taken measures over time to try and weed out the bad, by making stricter policies for content addition. These days, altering or contributing to Wikipedia content is no easy feat. 

Wikipedia


Sunday, November 22, 2009

Google Wave Gets a Feature for "Following"

from WebPro News

Google has added a "follow" feature to Google Wave. The feature is designed to let users stay up to date on public waves of interest. In other words, if there are waves out there that are available to everybody, and you want to follow it, simply click the follow button for that particular wave. 

When a user adds you to a Wave, or if you contribute to one, you will automatically be "following" that wave. You can remove waves from your inbox by hitting the "archive" button, but they will come back when they are updated. Users can switch between unfollowing and following waves as often as they like.

Google Wave - Following

Google Wave - Unfollowing

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Google to Show Off Chrome OS This Week

From WebPro News

Update:
 According to TechCrunch, Google will be holding a special Chrome OS eventon Thursday morning, where they will show off demos and give an overview of the product, now said to be launching next year.

Original Article: Michael Arrington from TechCrunch claims to have heard from "a reliable source" that Google will be launching the much-anticipated Chrome OS within a week. The tech industry media has been punked on Chrome OS in the past, but as Arrington notes, Google has said to expect it in the fall, and fall is running out. 

Chrome OS is Google's attempt to "rethink what operating systems should be." It's an open source, "lightweight" operating system to be initially targeted at netbooks.

"Speed, simplicity and security are the key aspects of Google Chrome OS," Google said upon the Chrome OS announcement. "We're designing the OS to be fast and lightweight, to start up and get you onto the web in a few seconds. The user interface is minimal to stay out of your way, and most of the user experience takes place on the web. And as we did for the Google Chrome browser, we are going back to the basics and completely redesigning the underlying security architecture of the OS so that users don't have to deal with viruses, malware and security updates. It should just work."

Chrome OS"The software architecture is simple — Google Chrome running within a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel. For application developers, the web is the platform," the company continued. "All web-based applications will automatically work and new applications can be written using your favorite web technologies. And of course, these apps will run not only on Google Chrome OS, but on any standards-based browser on Windows, Mac and Linux thereby giving developers the largest user base of any platform."


Google: Page Speed May Become a Ranking Factor in 2010

From WebPro News

Over the course of 2009, a consistent theme that Google has been involved with is that of speed. In announcement after announcement, Google has talked about the importance of speed on the web, and how the company wants to do everything it can to make the web a faster place. Has it occurred to you that how fast your page loads may have a direct effect on how your site ranks in Google? 

Don't worry, it hasn't had an impact...yet. In an interview with WebProNews, Google's Matt Cutts told us that speed may soon be a ranking factor. 

"Historically, we haven't had to use it in our search rankings, but a lot of people within Google think that the web should be fast," says Cutts. "It should be a good experience, and so it's sort of fair to say that if you're a fast site, maybe you should get a little bit of a bonus. If you really have an awfully slow site, then maybe users don't want that as much."

5 Less Obvious Online Reputation Management Issues

from WebPro News

There are a lot of elements to online reputation management. Really, depending on how far you want to take it, the elements are basically limitless. Any web property out there that gives people a voice caters to potential reputation smearing. 

There have been entire books written about online reputation management, and countless articles, but I just wanted to take the time to point out five things to keep track of that you may not have considered (or maybe you have...if so, good thinking).