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9.10.06

Wiki, wini, wendi - apologies to my Latin Master

Further to an earlier post by Simon and myself (see Is Wikipedia the first stop for social media strategies?) I've come across this:

MyWikiBiz
is taking further Simon's original thoughts and actively attacking the possibilities of social media and, in due course, throwing up all sorts of ehtical questions what you can do on Wikipedia without contravening the precepts it was set up with.

Here's their sale pitch:
Wikipedia is perhaps the most influential Internet phenomenon to emerge in the 21st century. The global, cooperative free-content encyclopedia is now the web’s number one Reference site, and businesses shouldn’t be left behind on this information opportunity.

If your company or organization already has a well-designed, accurately-written article on Wikipedia, then congratulations – our services are not for you.

However, if your business is lacking a well-written article on Wikipedia, read on – we’re here to help you!

An article on Wikipedia about your business will generate more traffic to your web site. It’s hard to believe, but the Wikipedia domain garners more Internet visitors than the web sites of the New York Times, the Weather Channel, MapQuest, and InfoSpace


All of this is true of course. As Simon has pointed out if you do a Google search on a brand then Wikipedia and the brand's definition will always appear in the top ten search results.

Now this is fantastic for PRs and marketers but I do wonder if the Guerrillas (I don't use this as a perjorative term) who organise Wiki will take too kindly to any media massaging, and any brand that engages in this kind of activity will quickly come unstuck. Who can you trust. Well, from a PR and marketing point of view those who are the most transparent, honest and willing to engage in a dialogue and NOT abuse the good service Wikipedia does.

Discuss.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Ian,

I agree - ensuring your organisation is accurately represented on Wikipedia is important.

There were some problems with MyWikiBiz posting onto Wikipedia in the summer - eventually a solution was reached, but it strikes me as a bit of a fudge.

More info and detail from Constantin: http://blog.basturea.com/archives/2006/08/29/wikipedia-pr-edits-guidelines/

cheers
sw

Anonymous said...

Ian.... why haven't you been reading my blog??

See this post from... ooh..... years ago! ;)

http://simoncollister.typepad.com/simonsays/2006/08/pr_professional.html