Every week, I’ll posting a short list-column on “why X-company has worked”. Every Wednesday, that is. Starting today with Wikipedia:
- It’s 100% free.
- It’s a non-profit organisation. People will NEVER do this kind of a thing for a for-profit.
- Everyone can edit it with a click of a button. No registration required (not any more).
- It had a snowball effect. It started with very little and bought in a crowd. That crowd built upon it, and it bought in larger crowd, etc. and now it’s up there.
- It has a simple interface and a simple goal.
- It’s multi-lignual and not just US-only. Remember, the whole world together is much bigger than just the U.S.
- It’s strictly a community effort. There’s no “leader” or “moderator” of any sort in any category. Everyone is equal.
- When people see mistakes, they feel obliged or almost as they have they have the responsibility to fix that mistake. In corny terms, they feel like they were destined to do it.
- It was the first of its kind. Sure, there have been a few attempts of this sort, but this had the best combination (wikis + community + freedom + encyclopedia) which is really a combination of success.
- It’s name is almost as good as it can be. It shows that it’s a community encyclopedia, and and at the same time people who don’t know about wikis get to know about them.
Stay tuned. Next week, I’ll be doing Skype.
