The ACSI has been conducting yearly studies about the performance of various online media brands of portals, search engines, news and information sites etc. This year for the first time they have included social media sites like Facebook, MySpace, YouTube and Wikipedia in their study.

Much to everyone’s surprise, the popular social media sites have not been ranked too highly on the customer satisfaction index.

On a scale of 0-100 Facebook has scored just 64, MySpace 63 and YouTube 73 points. The less popular but steady, Wikipedia has scored 77 points.

Larry Freed Chief Executive of Foresee Results says, “Customer satisfaction is a combination of what you get and what you expect [from a website]. The business model of starting out free and ad-free, then turning your site into something else over time works somewhere in tech, but from the average consumer standpoint it doesn’t work.”

Facebook which has faced several changes over the years, and which includes a lot of ads and gaming services has not satisfied its customers very well. Users also have some reservations about some of Facebook’s policies regarding privacy issues.

Wikipedia on the other hand, which is not a commercial site has maintained a steady format, thus allowing customers to achieve a certain level of comfort while accessing it.

One glaring omission in the study is Twitter. The reason for this is the fact that most users access it through third party apps rather than through Twitter.com, thus making it difficult to to collect accurate results. However it is likely to be included in the study from next year.

Facebook with a score of 64 ranks even lower than the IRS, and is in the bottom 5% of private companies studied along with airlines and cable companies. According to Larry Freed, one reason why users keep going back to Facebook in spite of low satisfaction, is that they do not have a better alternative at present.

Among other online categories studied, Google is at the top of the search engines with 80 points, but it has fallen 7 points since the previous study. While Bing which has been satudied for the first time, has 77 points followed by Yahoo! with 76 points, AOL with 74 points and Ask.com with 73 points.

Among the news categry Fox News was at the top with 82 points while MSNBC.com had 74 points and CNN.com had 73 points.

Wikipedia took 5 years to reach 1 million articles, from its launch in January 2001. After that, it took just about 17 months to reach the 2 million mark, as the number of active contributors went up exponentially, from just a few thousand in 2004 to 300,000 in 2007.

Now in August 2009, nearly 2 years later, Wikipedia has published its 3 millionth article in English, a target that should have been reached much sooner. The reason this didn’t happen earlier is that the average number of articles being contributed daily has gone down from 2,700 in July 2007 to 1,300 in 2009.

While the number of contributors to Wikipedia has grown to 500,000, a large number of these are only occasional contributors. The number of highly active editors has remained almost the same.

Ed H Chi, a scientist with the Palo Alto Research Center, who has been studying how Wikipedia works, has found that regular editors are most likely to have their entries accepted. The refusal rate for changes suggested by these regular editors is just 1%.

Users who make between 2 to 9 contributions a month have a 5% chance of having their changes refused, while those that make only 1 entry per month have a 25% chance of having their changes and entries overturned by the regular editors.

This ongoing power struggle between the ‘deletionists’ and the ‘inclusionists’ seems to be plaguing Wikipedia just like the abuse of power by editors brought about the near-demise of the Open Directory Project (DMOZ).

The deletionists are very particular about the entries they accept. They want to create a very well written encyclopedia. The inclusionists, on the other hand, try to incorporate as many articles as possible in the hope that poor articles can be improved upon later.

At present it looks as though the deletionists have got the upper hand.

If things continue in this manner, Wikipedia may eventually ‘die’ just like DMOZ, which used to also be a Google favourite until a handful of unscrupulous SEOs became category editors and started abusing the directory for their own personal gain.

Wikipedia founder, Jimmy Wales, has proposed that any information submitted by unknown users should first be sent to trustworthy editors for confirmation or ‘Flagged Revisions’ before it is posted for general viewing on the online encyclopedia.

False information could have been prevented from appearing by locking certain articles to prevent edits, or by preventing unknown editors from editing. But, as Cade Metz points out, both these options are contrary to the principles on which Wikipedia is based.

The reason for the debate on the introduction of flagged revisions is that it defeats the whole purpose of Wikipedia, which has so far allowed all users to make changes to articles as they see fit – a principle that has made Wikipedia so popular.

Jimmy Wales says that if flagged revisions had been introduced, such false reports would definitely have been prevented. He claims that during a survey of Wikipedia users, 60% were in favour of this scheme. However he admits that while such an editorial system is already in use for all articles in the German version of Wikipedia, it has resulted in a delay of 3 weeks before publication, which is clearly unacceptable. The delay for the English version should be no more than 1 week and preferably even less as only some of the articles will be edited.

Those in favour of the scheme have applauded the move as being “in the best interests of the project”.

On the other hand, those opposed to this proposal have protested strongly saying that even the false reports had been removed in just 5 minutes, which is very impressive, and hence the flagged revisions that will delay the articles greatly should not be introduced.

DMOZ started off and grew tremendously in popularity on the same principle. Power corrupts, though, and DMOZ was no exception to this and neither will Wikipedia be.

It is very likely that once editors get even greater powers to police and filter content they will start forming cartels and abusing this power to ensure that only the content and opinions that they want will appears on Wikipedia. Reports in the past have already alleged formation of cartels by groups of active editors who almost immediately overwrite changes that go against their thinking.

Users have been asked to suggest other alternatives to this proposal. T3 magazine reports that a vote held in the next fortnight will decide how things will proceed.

Wikipedia users have not taken very kindly to this action. The page in question, was the cover of an album by the Scorpions, a German heavy metal band. The album had been released way back in 1976.

The decision to block the page was taken after the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) warned the service providers that the picture might be illegal. They said it was a “potentially illegal indecent image of a child” less than 18 years of age.

Users, who have strongly objected to the move, say that the IWF was not meant to censor popular sites such as Wikipedia. They also stated that the photo in question was available in several books and had never been called illegal.

The IWF however, stands by their decision, saying that they had even consulted the police before issuing the warning.

Since ISPs such as BT, AOL and News International are members of the IWF, this picture is now inaccessible to about 95% of internet users in the U.K.

What is annoying a lot of users is that along with the photograph, even the text on that page has been blocked.

David Gerard a volunteer at Wikipedia, said on BBC’s Radio 4 that the picture was still available on the album cover on the band’s box set and also on several other websites.

When asked why the same picture on Amazon had not been blocked, IWF said that it was a “pragmatic” decision, which has led users to believe that the educational site Wikipedia is being bullied, while Amazon, which is a relatively cash rich site has been left alone as they may sue the IWF.

The spokesperson of the IWF, Susan Robertson however defends the action, by saying that they only act on the reports they receive, and the only report received so far had been of Wikipedia. She said that the analyst team and police partners would be consulted, regarding the image on Amazon.

The IWF has been requested by the Wikimedia Foundation to remove Wikipedia from the blacklist, as it is one of the best educational sites and even has better information than many encyclopedias.

Update: The IWF has reversed its decision on Tuesday, after invoking its own appeals procedure. They issued a statement saying “in light of the length of time the image has existed and its wide availability, the decision has been taken to remove this webpage from our list.”

Twitter users in and around the area started sending eye-witness accounts of the events on a minute by minute basis. Almost 70 – 80 tweets were posted within 5 seconds, and since Twitter has over 6 million users the news was spread really fast.

In fact, even some of the major Television and radio stations such as BBC and CNN used information sent through Twitter and photos posted on Flickr by ordinary citizens who were present at the spot, such as the ones shown above and below here:

Users not only sent out details about the terrorist attack, but also messages asking people to donate blood at the major hospitals, along with the contact numbers to help out in the crisis. Some people also used the site to reassure their near and dear ones about their safety.

Flickr and Twitter were not the only sites used. A new entry was created on Wikipedia, which local users added details to, as they occurred. Somebody else actually pinpointed the location of the buildings where the mayhem in progress on Google Maps.

While the BBC, CNN and every major newspaper has dedicated a lot of space to the events still unfolding in Mumbai, people increasingly seem to turn to user-generated content on sites like Twitter to get the “real”, unfiltered information as it happens.

Important Note: Please remember that these same tools of communication can be used by the terrorists to keep in touch and convey the latest information to each other. Also if citizens post too many details about the rescue operations in progress, the terrorists can benefit from this information, and change their positions or tactics if necessary. Users must therefore exercise caution regarding the information they send out.

They have already started making use of the Semantic technology available in Powerset for various projects, to improve the user experience.

To begin with they have started off with simple projects, which they could complete within one month, so as to get a proper feel of the way the technology works. At present these new projects are being tested on only a handful of clients, in order to get feedback and data from which to make further improvements, before releasing the finished product in the market.

The first project they have undertaken is to increase the number of queries that Live Search will instantly answer. As of now, Live Search can answer some queries including those like Microsoft, San Francisco weather etc. Several celebrities and bloggers are also covered in this facility, but they still have a long way to go, before Live Search will answer more general queries like Films, music etc. Some of these general category queries have been chosen on an experimental basis to present a topical summary with links, just like the Freebase Answers in Powerset.

The second experiment undertaken is to improve the captions of Wikipedia articles, making use of the Semantic technology based in Powerset. The idea is to have eye-catching captions for the Wikipedia articles, as they show up frequently in Live Search queries. These changes will be visible to users, and it will be possible to judge whether the new or older captions perform better.

The third project undertaken, for now, is to use Factz extraction from Powerset to generate a list of queries that are related to a given query.

Live Search technology is also being used on Powerset to get related articles on Wikipedia, which have been enhanced by Powerset.

These are early days for the collaboration and much more can be expected to come from it, in the future.

Although the Web can be considered as an encyclopedia of information on various subjects, there is still a lot of information that has not yet been put online. There are lots of people who possess knowledge on various subjects that cannot be found online, and this information could be of great help to other people all over the world.

Through Knol, Google intends to encourage people to write on subjects that they have a good knowledge of, and thus disseminate this information and help millions of people.

Every Knol will be authored by a person (or a group of persons) who have expertise in that field. The name of the authors will be attached to the Knol. Obviously, it is expected that there will be several Knols on each subject, thus providing more information and differing view points to the users.

Authors on any given subject will be able to work together with each other through a method called ‘moderated collaboration’. Readers will be able to make suggestions on the Knol, but authors will have the right to accept or reject suggestions as per their wishes.

Knols will make it possible for authors and readers to interact with each other through the use of tools such as comments, ratings and reviews. The author will also have the option to choose to display ads from Google AdSense. If he does include an ad with his Knol, Google will pay him a certain percentage of the proceeds accrued from that ad placement.

Google has also made an arrangement with New Yorker magazine, by which authors will be able to include one cartoon per Knol, from the entire cartoon collection of the New Yorker. It is expected that this could be a very effective way for an author to make a point.

In some ways Google Knol will be similar to Wikipedia, Hubpages and any other collaborative online encyclopedia where people contribute information to the site. However, Google will be giving due credit to the authors and may even share advertising revenues with authors, which is not the case with Wikipedia. Thus it is possible, that those who had so far contributed to Wikipedia may be tempted to turn to Google in future.

It is also possible that in future Google may promote these Knols on their search results pages, where it currently features sites like Wikipedia, which may not be a very ethical thing to do.

However she seems to have quite a logical reason behind this diktat. She has found that most of her students just reproduce the same information that they find on the search engine and online encyclopedia.

In truth, most citizens in developed countries have totally surrendered to the wonders of technology, but in the process have given up using and developing their own minds to understand and analyze. It looks almost as though students pay good money and attend universities only to learn how to use Google!

The result of this blind allegiance to the wisdom of websites like Wikipedia is that students come up with average and humdrum results on their research projects; whereas what is required of students at the university level is the ability to study various issues and then think for themselves and come to their own conclusion regarding the issues at hand.

Prof Brabazon believes that it is upto the educational institutions to prevent students from having a sheep mentality where everybody blindly follows the internet. Speaking to a local newspaper she said, “”I ban my students from using Google, Wikipedia and other websites like that. I give them a reading list to work from and expect them to cite a good number of them in any work they produce.”

It is convenient for lecturers and professors to allow their students to just use easily accessible online resources for the projects assigned to them, but that is not what they are paid to do. It is the job of each teacher to impart knowledge to and guide students to think for themselves and experience things first hand rather than rely solely on computers.

Professor Brabazon personally forbids her students to use search engines for their projects. While this does seem rather drastic, it is really worthwhile wondering if she may be right in doing so, as we seem to have become slaves to the world of technology; computers in particular.

Google Knol will function take the form of a knowledge base where anyone and everyone can contribute informative articles on any topic. Authoring tools will be provided by Google. Other users will be able to comment, suggest edits and also add advertisements if the author approves. This would guarantee authors the opportuntiy to earn ad based revenues.

Knol will also give due recognition to its contributors that Wikipedia denies them. This combined with the lure of monetary benefits through the ads posted on individual pages might attract new authors and draw contributors away from Wikipedia.

However, the lack of an editorial policy on Knol might work against it, as we have already seen to be the case with Wikipedia where inaccurate, biased and promotional information is frequently posted by self-proclaimed pundits and unscrupulous corporations.

It is also quite strange to see Google promoting its own content. This could mean that Google will no more be on neutral grounds when it comes to showing search results; they will probably push their own content to the top of the list. A bias could potentially infiltrate its way into Google’s search results which will not be good news for other content publishers.

Even though the idea may sound far fetched right now, the possibility that one day “search and find” operations might just be restricted to Google pages only is not altogether impossible! At least that’s what Google seems to be aiming for – an absolute monopoly of the Internet!

The image below shows a screenshot of a “Knol”. Click on it to view the full article.

The article provides a checklist for Wikipedia image SEO, which is replicated here:

1. Do a survey to identify specific articles that lack quality images. Your aim should be to provide unique content where it did not exist before. Create a list of images that would each enhance at least one article.
2. Arrange the appropriate licensing and announce it on your client’s web site.
3. Upload images to Wikimedia Commons. Include a statement about licensing status and an outgoing link as verification. Categorize the images.
4. Over at Wikipedia, notify the appropriate WikiProject with a list that correlates available images to suggested articles and request assistance from volunteers. This indirect approach is diplomatic for conflict of interest situations.
5. Be low key and tasteful. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia.

According to Cary Bass of the Wikimedia Foundation, “The Wikimedia Foundation appreciates good quality, freely licensed images, and credit where credit is due is never an issue. Many of our images fall under an attribution license, which often takes the form of a web link back to the releaser’s web page.”

When he was found out, Ryan Jordan admitted that he used books like Catholicism for Dummies as a reference for his writings!

Sites such as Wikipedia have always been susceptible to vandalism and the spread of false information by individuals or groups with a vested interest. This problem has been brought into the spotlight by the case of Mr Jordan, who could be one of many other supposed “authority” writers on the popular site, who actually have no credibility whatsoever.