To Wikipedia, or not to?

While working on a presentation for my Public Relations class this week, one of my groupmates came across this video clip for the television show 30 Rock. I thought this clip offered some comedic insight into how useful forums and sites such as Wikipedia really are. As we are all well aware, Wikipedia allows for anyone to post and edit the information on their sites. Just last week, I posted about the Wikipedia article we referred to in class, and I thought this would be an interesting follow up.

After researching for this presentation, it is really evident that there is definitely a controversy on the credibility of sites such as Wikipedia. But still, practically everything you run a google search for shows you Wikipedia as one of the first entries. So in my opinion, we should definitely be weary, but not discredit these types of sites completely. The information we choose to use is up to us, and we cannot completely blame the incorrect information or “facts” we use from any website.

30 Rock Video-

Wikipedia Presence of the Top Ten Fortune 500 Companies

Today in Social Media Class we went over a new Wikipedia article that addressed some of the issues that companies are facing with the site. The article found that:

• Negativity is increasing greatly over time.

• Length of entries has increased greatly as well

• Some of the negative content is “outsourced” from the

• The focus of articles has shifted.

Obviously, none of this can be good for companies. But besides the obvious repercussion of Wikipedia, I thought it was really interesting how the article referred to Wikipedia as “social media” But the similarities are there. Just like with social media sites, anyone can contribute to wikipedias. And when they do, Wikipedia make note of it and you are about to see who has contributed to whatever it is that you are looking up. It is this idea of user generated content that is evident in Wikipedia just as it is on twitter, youtube, blogger, or facebook.

“Today, Wikipedia has greatly improved its editing process and, thereby, its credibility. Most importantly: It is moving up on all popular search engines. If you google “Wal-Mart,” “Exxon Mobil,” or “Ford,” the Wikipedia entries on these companies will rank somewhere between 4th and 6th, right behind the official corporate websites. This means the “greedy international conglomerate,” the “disinformation tactics,” and the “slave labor in Cologne” are only a click away.”