Information Society Watch

January 7, 2008, Miguel Helft, New York Times

Jimmy Wales, the co-founder of Wikipedia, is launching an open source project to put information on the Internet back in the hands of users. This time Wales has developed a new Internet search engine, Wikia Search, which will rank Web pages by users' rankings of search results for quality and relevance. Wales expresses concern that it is not entirely known how major search engines select certain sites over others. Wikia Search is meant to deliver more useful results by providing a more transparent search process in comparison with current major search engines that are the 'gatekeepers of the world's information'. The search engine must address its vulnerability to people who try to manipulate the system for their own gains, but in the meanwhile the success of Wikia Search to offer a feasible alternative to the big search engines will only be revealed with time.

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