RSSGoogle Offers to Host Wikipedia
By Nate Mook | Published February 11, 2005, 12:56 PM
From Internet domains to Web browsers, Google seems to have its hands all over the Web these days. But the search giant shows no signs of slowing its reach, and has offered to host the Wikipedia online encyclopedia. Wiki Media Foundation, which runs Wikipedia, says Google has volunteered to supply servers and bandwidth to the project.
Wikipedia is an open online encyclopedia that can be edited by anyone who volunteers. The project has become immensely popular on the Web, and is having problems sustaining its growth.
Although exact terms of Google's offer have not be publicly disclosed, Wiki Media's board of directors is considering a deal and plans to meet with Google in March. The foundation did say that Google will not insert its text based advertising on Wikipedia.
"Google has at least tentatively agreed to give us access to a certain number of dual Xeon servers at one or more of their data centers and with unlimited bandwidth," a Wikipedia administrator said.
"I've been told that there are no strings attached, meaning they don't expect us to do anything for then, such as having Google Ads. In short, this is wonderful news."
Wikipedia is great, but their servers suck.
This is a nice offer on Google's part that should benefit Wikipedia, Google, and Internet users !
The DataRat
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|Google acquired PyraLabs, the maker of Blogger software but did very little to improve it. Blogger has become slower and no new set of features have been added since Google acquired it.
While on the other hand, they did improve Picasa which is now in it's second avatar.
Hope the same happens with GWiki.
Amit @ http://labnol.blogspot.com
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|Well, the Picasa folks were a dedicated software company before Google came along. Blogger was a simple online blog utility, probably run by a few guys. I don't think Google's acquisition of either made much of an impact to the development of the product itself.
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|Google is not "acquiring" or "buying" Wikipedia!!
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|Thank you Google for this! I'm using Wikipedia a lot and it is becoming quite slow here. So I hope they accept this offer and make it faster. It is a truly nice encyclopedia that is created in a spirit of sharing knowledge in a similar way that opensource does it with apps. This is the way to go in the future!
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|I have to say that I'm starting to wonder about Google. I am wondering what they are trying to do. It's obvious that they want to have their hands in every piece of information out there. The problem is that I think they are willing to do whatever they need to get it. Maybe I'm too paranoid. I just think that since they started Gmail, and now own Picasa, and Blogger that they want to get into your life. They want to keep track of all your pictures, emails, web logs, and anything they can. I'm starting to wonder if I should even continue using my Gmail account. I'm actually starting to become concerned about Google. They kind of scare me to tell you the truth. It seems like they put on a nice cheery face and tell you nice things while they are indexing your hard drive and all your personal info in the background.
Call me crazy. Google is too powerful. I am actually more afraid of Google than of Microsoft. Makes me want to use Yahoo! Mail or Hotmail again.
Weird...
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|Yeah, I'll call you crazy. Google just wants to expand its horizons. I don't think they are collecting private personal info about people.
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|I'm thinking that they will get in bed with the U.S. Government and collect tons of info about people and what they do. It will be all secret due to "National Security". Maybe I'm crazy paranoid. :)
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|I think I will call you crazy also.
From what I have seen, google has been expanding their horizons, but unlike Microsoft, they have not been charging for most of the expansions they are doing. Gmail is fantastic, google search is getting better, maps.google.com is a lot simpler than mapquest and not to talk about their expansions into local information search like shops, food etc.
I am the least afraid of Google, vs Microsoft taking over the world. I think they are really innovating how the internet works and works for us. There hasnt been much excitement in the internet til Google began investing ideas into it.
Frankly I don't want them to stop.
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|I dont trust Google much either. They do seem to be a bit on the shady side with the way they do there custom ads with gmail and other stuff. Though i'm not all that paranoid about em. I kinda dont expect them to be around for all that long though. I have a feeling there going to pull an Enron one day.
Plus Yahoo has never let me down sience 1996/7 so theres no point in me changing.
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|Its called EPIC: http://www.robinsloan.com/epic/
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|That's not that far fetched. The government has lots of information that it needs to sort through, so Google as a search engine company would be the ideal candidate to partner with.
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