I was browsing the web last night and came across WikiSeek. And I have seen an increasing number of vertical search sites using Wikipedia data as the underlying set of source data for what they’re doing. I use Wikipedia fairly often and don’t have any issues with the relatively simple UI. Perhaps I’m missing something – Wikipedia strikes me as pretty easy to use and it’s one of the sites that Google indexes quite frequently.
I do, however, find the theme of Wikipedia-as-seed to be interesting; there is a lot of interesting data in Wikipedia that can be mined and used to address either vertical or popular queries on the web.
I think Wikipedia is way ahead of you Charles. If you take a look at natural search results lately, you’ll find wikipedia entries high at the top of the list. So I would imagine that a non-trivial amount of traffic is driven by natural search results. This, I think, calls for rethinking the notion of user interface with regard to data-centric cites like wikipedia. It might want to employ a different type of UI/search/find features given the means by which individuals actual find and use its content. It’s actual domain splash may not be terribly relevant to the average user. But whatever the case, wikipedia’s data is already getting noticed via other methods.
It begs the question as to how valuable wikipedia entries are given the relatively high ranking it gets in popular searches. Search “Britney Spears” on Google and wikipedia comes up 2nd. How much is that worth?
I think Wikipedia is way ahead of you Charles. If you take a look at natural search results lately, you’ll find wikipedia entries high at the top of the list. So I would imagine that a non-trivial amount of traffic is driven by natural search results. This, I think, calls for rethinking the notion of user interface with regard to data-centric cites like wikipedia. It might want to employ a different type of UI/search/find features given the means by which individuals actual find and use its content. It’s actual domain splash may not be terribly relevant to the average user. But whatever the case, wikipedia’s data is already getting noticed via other methods. It begs the question as to how valuable wikipedia entries are given the relatively high ranking it gets in popular searches. Search “Britney Spears” on Google and wikipedia comes up 2nd. How much is that worth?
From what I’ve seen, Wikipedia search results are almost always in the top 10 for popular informational queries (names, places, historical events, etc) when I search using Google. Regardless of the internal site search capabilities that Wikipedia offers, Google and the other major search engines seem to do a really good job of indexing the content and making it accessible. If that’s the case, what’s the argument for another search interface or engine riding on top?