Wikis are a great way to capture local content and build community.
In the world of internet search engines what could possibly be bigger then Google? In the USA no one is bigger then Google and they are continuing to grow. According to an April 2007 comscore.com report Google is continuing to grow its market share and a accounts for 49.7 of US internet searches.
A more recent July 12, 2007 Market share report by Net Applications also point out that Google continues to be the dominate search engine and accounts for over 53% of all searches in the U.S. Despite the conflicting data it is a generally accepted fact that Google is the top search engine in the US and the number one search engine in the world. Google has become so omni present in the internet world even the word Google has become a verb for many.
Given the success of the companies ability to Googlize the earth and dominate the internet I was intrigued by an article that I read recently in the New York Times about a place where “Google isn’t king.”
According to the article Web uses in South Korea, one of the world’s most wired countries, seldom “Google” anything. They “Naver” it. The article goes on to point out that “Naver.com” accounts for more that 77% of all Web searches in South Korea and that Google handles a mere 1.7% of South Korean Web searches.
According to one source quoted in the article “the big problem with Google is that it does not have enough Korean-language data to trawl to satisfy South Korean customers.” It also states that to be successful in South Korea a search engine needs to create it own databases and content.
Reading more about Naver it seems to me like a cross between a Wiki and an online reference service. With over 16 million visitors per day Naver relies on tens of thousands of volunteer respondents to answer questions and post responses. From these volunteers Naver has accumulated a user-generated database of over 70 million entries.
According to the article Naver.com feeds a sense of community and its success has largely been fueled by a South Korean inclination to help one another on the Web.
I found the entire article fascinating and a great model for libraries to follow to further build a sense of community among the patrons that they serve.
On a local basis who knows more about a community then its members? What better place then the library to act as a community information portal? Taking a lead from the Naver model all libraries should consider adding a local knowledge Wiki as a component of their service offerings. A local Wiki would provide libraries with a great way to connect their users and share knowledge. Wikis are also a great way to capture community content that may not otherwise be available on the internet. They are also a great way to build communities.
