Wikipedia has announced on its homepage today the creation of the three millionth article on its English version. This milestone was created with the addition of a page about Beate Marie Eriksen, a Norwegian actress and film director.
Wikipedia has been the most successful social media experiment in recent times. Started in 2001, the online encyclopedia has very quickly replaced Encyclopedia Brittanica as the most preferred destination for information seekers. What has been so dramatic in the growth of Wikipedia is that the contribution has been solely through volunteers and the foundation run with the help of donations!
The website, including all the different languages, today has close to 13 million articles written by over 10 million registered users; not counting the several million other users who contribute as unregistered editors. From an Indian standpoint, Wikipedia has still got a lot of scope to grow considering that the Indian language sections of Wikipedia have had relatively less article count. Most Indian language sections in Wikipedia only have between 10000 to 50000 articles.
Looking back at the splendid growth the website has had makes me wonder if Wikipedia would have been the same if they had chosen to be a profit-centric corporate house? What do you think?
