April 2008 - Planeta.com
announces record visits to our wiki
from January to April.
Launched in late 2007 as a complement to the Planeta.com website,
the Planeta Wikispace
has been used to develop features on climate change, geotourism,
engagement, food, jaguars, plastic, things to do in Capetown,
an eco city guide to Barcelona, Earth Day and Australian wildlife
and slang. "The growth has been exponential," said
Planeta.com founder Ron
Mader, directing those interested to the public
usage statistics and the 2008
Summary.
"As electronic publication continues to evolve, we are
seeing a trend toward wikification,"
Mader said. "This is an exciting time to develop collaborative
work. The process of suggesting edits, new links and developing
projects of mutual interest is much easier using a wiki than
the traditional cycle of exchanging emails."
Corrections posted on Australia,
for example, can be polished and incorporated onto Planeta.com's
Australia guide.
Planeta.com is using its wiki to provide updates for the Tourism
Educators Conference. Conference organizers are editors.
Previously the wiki was used to document the Kerala Conference
on Responsible Travel.
Planeta's wiki also provides an explanation and applications
for various RSS
news feeds.
WHAT'S A WIKI?
What's a wiki? "A few years after this software was introduced,
the concept still confuses people, particularly those who want
to have control over editorial content," Mader confided.
"We are attracted to the idea since Planeta.com has evolved
with reader feedback. By using a wiki, we are able tow work
with long-time contacts in developing and improving features
without the tedious exchange of documents via email."
The philosophy behind Wiki is that text is fluid and can be
edited, illustrated in the popular video The
Machine is Us/ing Us. The process is collaborative, following
the logic that 'two heads are better than one' or the more the
merrier!'
Wiki
collaboration leads to happiness is a 2008 blog that visually
documents the simplification of using a wiki over email in editing
text.
"Our use of Wiki-style editing the past four months has
surpassed every goal I had," Mader said. "The process
has been fun and reflects natural world partnerships that are
friendly and informal. There's no better evidence of this than
the guides to the English
language co-written and edited with friends who are sharing
their expertise."
CO-CREATION AND COLLABORATION
"At this time we are selecting editors
on the basis of colleagues we know first hand or have had ample
time with," Mader said "Wiki has reached the point
in which a critical mass of web-savvy and content-savvy people
have joined forces to develop collaborative work online."
It would be good to work with some digital natives and we welcome
a dialogue that explores
Generation C."
Similar projects using Wiki editing are documenting Oaxaca,
Mexico and journalism
in Mexico.
OTHER WIKIS
There is an official Wikipedia
site and many sites that utilize the software and philosophy
to document a myriad of topics. Other wikis that have gained
favorite status on Planeta.com include Conservation
International, Dropkicks,
Lostpedia, OpenStreetMap
Wiki and Peace
Corps Wiki. Examples in Spanish are Oaxaca
Maíz and Ocho
Venado.
"We started focusing on Wiki during the 2007 Ecotourism
NZ Conference and the presentation Strategies
for using Web 2.0 for Travel Operators and Visitors,"
Mader said. Keeping an eye on New Zealand, Planeta.com developed
links with the iJump
Social Media Wiki and faculty from the ecotourism program
launched their own Ecotourism
NZ wiki.
|
