The New Cliche: "It's the Wikipedia of..." - Wikipedia-l

4 Oct 2005

Thought you all would find this amusing - Jeremey Wagstaff, WSJ tech
columnist, had a great piece about the Wikipedia as a new cliche...

http://loosewire.typepad.com/blog/2005/09/the_new_cliche_.html

The New Cliche: "It's the Wikipedia of..."

You know something has arrived when it's used to describe a
phenomenon. Or what people hope will be a phenomenon. Here's a
sampling:

    * Laptops This from Nicholas Negroponte, describing his $100
laptop for the developing world (via Andy Carvin's Waste of
Bandwidth): "It's the Wikipedia equivalent (of hardware)," he said,
describing the spirit of the laptop initiative.

    * Gasbuddy  Poster at ezboard: "It's the Wikipedia of Gas pumps. I
use it whenever I need gas. I can't believe I forgot about it until
now."

    * New York Times — This from a Xanga blogger: "It's the Wikipedia
of newspapers: great resource with plenty of interesting but useless
content. For goodness' sake, it's a newspaper, not Cosmo Girl."

    * The UK Good Food/Good Pub guide, described on Wikipedia chat as
"It's the wikipedia of food guides"

    * Urban Dictionary — described by this blogger as "the Wikipedia
of the streets beyach!"

    * Sushi World Guide — "it seems the community is still growing. It
is the 'Wikipedia of Sushi'.

    * Pure Energy Systems – " We will be the Wikipedia of alternate
energy technology."

    * Wondir — hailed on the unofficial google blog as "the Wikipedia
of answer sites"

    * Dermatlas — described here as "the Wikipedia of dermatology atlases"

    * Math World — described here as "the wikipedia of math"

    * GuitarWiki — described by a visitor as possibly becoming "the
Wikipedia of the guitar world"