The Wiki Model (aka Collaborative System for writing an edit entries), is really getting hot these days. The model makes, all the services delivered to a user, by another user. The collaborative methodology (Open Source in Web2.0 terms), has really picked up starting with the most famous wikipedia. Some of the new websites include

Shopwiki : For Product Reviews & cost comparsion.                          

wikitravel: For Tourism advice.

eHOw   : How to do something.

wikihow   : Same as that of eHow.

wikia   : Site devoted to topics judged too esoteric for online encyclopedia.

 Over the last few years, wikis have gained traction as tools in the business world, where companies run them on internal networks to foster collaboration on complex projects. The Gartner Group has predicted that half of all companies will use them internally in some fashion by 2009. There has also been at least one failed experiment with wikis in journalism: The Los Angeles Times tried online “wikitorials” but quickly abandoned the idea.

Even Jimmy Wales, who founded Wikipedia, is looking for ways to broaden — and profit from — the wiki concept. With financing from technology luminaries like Marc Andreessen and Mitchell Kapor, he and Angela Beesley started Wikia, which includes 1,500 separate wikis, from the Star Wars-focused Wookieepedia to user-generated pages on depression. Although Wikia is a for-profit company, it was founded with some of the communitarian idealism of Wikipedia, and its business plan calls for it to donate money to that foundation.

“It’s never going to be a billion-dollar-revenue business,” said Gil Penchina, the company’s chief executive. He said that the site currently made less than a dollar a page per month, although the site’s growing number of pages could make that significant.

“It feels to me like Craigslist,” he said. “It’s a small business, but it’s a good business and it makes a lot of people happy.”

If wikis become a big business, some of that idealism may fade — and consumers may begin to resent contributing to the sites free. So far, though, the sites are growing fast, thanks to dedicated volunteers.

 Now its nuff.. Lemme go and search for "How to make Paneer thikka masala" at ehow.com and then find my next thing from www.whattodo.com.

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