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Reaching the next billion Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales seems focused on taking his online 'free to edit encyclopedia' to everyone, as the world talks about his plans to take on Google

S SHYAMALA Posted online: Monday, March 05, 2007 at 2301 hours IST

He rewrote the rules of encyclopedia business. And online search engines seem to be the next on target. But Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales seems occupied with taking his 'free to edit' encyclopedia to everyone in the world. He is headed to Japan after mingling with Indian bloggers and wiki professionals at an unconference (where crowd participates in the discussion instead of just the speaker talking, just like his Wikipedia). "We have to think of how to take it to every corner of the world," he says.

India and Indian languages, for instance, are already getting a bigger foothold on wikipedia, which ranks among the ten most visited sites globally. You could find detailed information in a small, relatively unknown town of India, thanks to the software created by IT professional, Ganesh Krishnamurthy for about 5,000 Indian towns and cities. "This wikibot is one of the examples of users making efficient use of the basic tool and platform to create their own wikis, says Jimmy.

And expanding Wikipedia to the next billion people is on top of his mind, even as he continues to refuse advertisements. "Every time we turn down an advertisement offer, we remind ourselves that this money could have gone into taking the access to developing countries. This is one of the things I challenge people sitting in a wealthy country with a broadband connection, he recently confirmed in a podcast from Chennai.

"We have to be clear that we are turning ads down for a good reason. And that's a stand for now. Project of a free wikipedia is a long-term project and that 's a decision we take every year; every month," he clarifies. Many in the industry believe that textlinks in Wikipedia could fetch a fortune. His not-for-profit online encyclopedia gets seven billion page views each month in more than five million multiple language entries.

Here to attend India's first Wikicamp unconference, he also kick-started an open book on the subject. "The most special feature is that this book will be authored collaboratively by people worldwide. These are people who have helped organise or attended unconferences around the world. It will be written openly on a wiki," informs Wikicamp organiser, Kiruba Shankar. Within days of the launch, 59 people from eight different cities have joined in.

Doesn't uncontrolled access to articles lead to vandalism and self-promotion? Jimmy agrees but says such acts are duly corrected by other users. Plagiarised copies can be easily found out because the style of writing, which is unlike the encyclopedia style, betrays the article, he adds.

Moreover, users take pride in publishing their own work rather than copying material, Jimmy says.

Apart from the encyclopedia, Jimmy has also spearheaded a for-profit organisation called Wikia, which is a repository of journals, magazines, opinions and a library. The team is also working on creating an open-source search engine to be called Wikiasearch, Jimmy says.

Though there are a few proprietary players in the search space, they lack innovations in the search methodologies, he says.

With open source, users will be able to create their own search engines from the basic tool, he adds. Wikipedia communities can also be involved to flag the best articles that will be given top priority while returning search results, he says.