Trust and Don't Verify!
Rogers Cadenhead:
Long Bet Winner: Weblogs vs. The New York Times | Workbench: In 2002, blogging evangelist Dave Winer made a long bet with New York Times executive Martin Nisenholtz: "In a Google search of five keywords or phrases representing the top five news stories of 2007, weblogs will rank higher than the New York Times' Web site."...
Winer predicted a news environment "changed so thoroughly that informed people will look to [expert non-journalist] amateurs they trust for the information they want." Nisenholtz expected the professional media [like the New York Times] to remain the authoritative source for "unbiased, accurate, and coherent" information....
But Rogers Cadehead says that both were wrong. Today:
our most trusted source on the biggest news stories of 2007 is a horde of nameless, faceless amateurs who are not required to prove expertise in the subjects they cover.
What is it? Wikipedia.
Winer wins the bet [he made against Nisenholtz] 3-2, but his premise of blog triumphalism is challenged.... In the five years since the bet was made, a clear winner did emerge, but it was neither blogs nor the Times.
Wikipedia, which was only one year old in 2002, ranks higher today on four of the five [top] news stories [of 2007]: 12th for Chinese exports, fifth for oil prices, first for the Iraq war, fourth for the mortgage crisis and first for the Virginia Tech killings...
Congratulations to Jimmy Wales and company!
I'm going to have to revive my wikipedia account and start contributing...
