Emerging Technology

Few Web sites generated as much media buzz in 2005 as Wikipedia, the collectively authored online encyclopedia. The attention is well deserved because there is no more compelling example of the Web's collaborative potential. What makes Wikipedia interesting is how it gets made: Ordinary people submit entries for different topics and then revise them over time. That is a truly radical break from the traditional closed-door, credentialed method of producing Encyclopædia Britannica and its ilk. While there have been substantive critiques of Wikipedia's accuracy and comprehensiveness, the idea that a free encyclopedia written entirely by volunteers could give the venerable Britannica a run for its money would have sounded preposterous even 10 years ago. Now it is a fact.