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Google Donating Bandwidth and Servers to Wikipedia 451

Posted by CowboyNeal from the yes-have-some dept.
Armstr0ng writes "According to Dirson's blog, Google plans to help Wikipedia by donating bandwidth and servers to handle part of their increasing load. In fact, there's an official page of Google's proposal to host some of the content of the Wikimedia projects."
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Google Donating Bandwidth and Servers to Wikipedia More

Google Donating Bandwidth and Servers to Wikipedia

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  • G-Franchise (Score:5, Funny)

    by fembots ( 753724 ) on Thursday February 10, 2005 @07:36PM (#11636829) Homepage
    1. Gmail
    2. Gbrowser
    3. Ghosting

  • For a small price (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 10, 2005 @07:37PM (#11636843)
    It is now called Gwikipedia.

    • Re:For a small price (Score:5, Funny)

      by jm92956n ( 758515 ) on Thursday February 10, 2005 @07:47PM (#11636975) Journal
      It is now called Gwikipedia.

      KDE users everywhere are, of course, completely outraged!

    • Re:For a small price (Score:3, Insightful)

      by mt v2.7 ( 772403 )
      It wouldn't suprise me at all.

      Google's goal has always been to collect all information possible and have it in one easy to access source.

      5 years ago people laughed at them.

      This is deinfetly one of the best ways of them to get closer to that goal.

      • Re:For a small price (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Carnildo ( 712617 ) on Thursday February 10, 2005 @07:58PM (#11637067) Homepage Journal
        Wikipedia would also be the perfect place to demonstrate their search capability and test new search algorithms: it's got good internal linkage, contributers are well-behaved, it's very high-traffic, and it's got a large document base to work from.

        • Re:For a small price (Score:4, Insightful)

          by cmowire ( 254489 ) on Thursday February 10, 2005 @08:07PM (#11637135) Homepage
          Things that work for a semi-controlled, editied Wikipedia don't work for the rest of the 'net.

          On the other hand, maybe they could mine it for semantic information from the already partially tagged content somehow.
          • Things that work for a semi-controlled, editied Wikipedia don't work for the rest of the 'net.

            True, but isn't it better to test new search technologies on a known quantity before unleashing them on the 'net at large? The Wikipedia database would make a great sandbox for Google to play with.

        • Re:For a small price (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Kryxan ( 767161 )
          I agree and would take this a step further to say google made an amazing decision here. I would never have believed that they would do something like this -- donating to a free internet resource like wikipedia. Wikipedia is one of the best general resources of useful knowledge on the net. My support goes to the people at google for making an investment which will likely lead to the proliferation of the best internet knowedge resource.

          Now I'm sure that there is no way google would make such an investment i

  • It's awesome... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by domenic v1.0 ( 610623 ) on Thursday February 10, 2005 @07:38PM (#11636854)
    Google donating bandwidth for the better of the internet community. If only more internet or tech companies would show some dedication like this into improving the education for the masses over the internet for the people. Hats off to google again.

    • Re:It's awesome... (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I've always viewed Wikipedia as one of the greatest achievements of humanity. Google is now my new favorite company for supporting this great endeavor.

    • Re:It's awesome... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by LilGuy ( 150110 ) on Thursday February 10, 2005 @07:44PM (#11636918)
      I can't help but wonder if this could backfire on wikipedia tho... suppose somewhere down the line they're heavily dependent on google's help.. and google disagrees with some content on it (read: investors aren't happy with content), there's a possibility of censorship or removal of content?

      I know people are gonna fly off the handle at me for even suggesting google could ever do anything so wrong, but you never know... especially once the stock market becomes involved.

      • Re:It's awesome... (Score:4, Interesting)

        by aussie_a ( 778472 ) on Thursday February 10, 2005 @07:56PM (#11637040) Journal
        It may be possible we will no longer have a Yahoo option when searching Wikipedia (at the moment you hit search and a google-search option appears along with a yahoo search option. In the future the yahoo one may dissapear).

      • Re:It's awesome... (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Carnildo ( 712617 )
        This sounds like a charitable donation, not any sort of official sponsorship. If that's the case, then if Google doesn't like something, Wikipedia can simply go back to its old system.

      • Re:It's awesome... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by kryogen1x ( 838672 ) on Thursday February 10, 2005 @08:16PM (#11637224)
        ...and google disagrees with some content on it (read: investors aren't happy with content), there's a possibility of censorship or removal of content?

        The content doesn't have to be hosted on Google's servers for Google to edit the content. Wikipedia articles can be edited by anyone.

      • Re:It's awesome... (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Custard ( 587661 ) on Thursday February 10, 2005 @08:17PM (#11637236) Homepage Journal
        I can't help but wonder if this could backfire on wikipedia tho... suppose somewhere down the line they're heavily dependent on google's help.. and google disagrees with some content on it (read: investors aren't happy with content), there's a possibility of censorship or removal of content?

        It's not like google has bought control of Wikipedia. If wiki accepts google's gift, that's nice. If google tries to get pushy later, wiki rejects the gift and reverts back to their old hosting solution.

        I don't really see a problem here. Though I'm surprised google didn't just ask to include wiki article summaries in their results directly, and then offer bandwidth help as a way to help wiki make it happen.

        Basically say, "We'd like to include wiki summaries in google search results, and if you'd like to let us do this but your current bandwidth can't support it, then we'll gladly assist you with bandwidth".

        • Re:It's awesome... (Score:5, Insightful)

          by lommer ( 566164 ) on Thursday February 10, 2005 @11:37PM (#11638521)
          Right, but imagine 3-4 years down the line, wikipedia is getting millions of hits daily... Google is now donating 90% of wikipedia's bandwidth and servers, and suddenly they say we want blah. Wikipedia is then faced with a choice of giving in to google, or of committing effective suicide as they are DDOS'd into oblivion once the servers are removed.

          • Re:It's awesome... (Score:4, Informative)

            by Cpyder ( 57655 ) on Friday February 11, 2005 @09:22AM (#11641052) Journal
            Luckily the Wikipedia content is under the GNU FDL, and the database dumps can be downloaded [wikipedia.org] by anyone with enough time & bandwidth. If Google should want to kill Wikipedia, I'm sure someone else (the big Y perhaps) will step forward to host it. By the way, in 3-4 years time.. who knows what the net will look like?

      • Re:It's awesome... (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        The stock market does not hold any power over Google, at least as of this point. Google's top people are still fully in control. Sure the shareholders can request a meeting and push forward an agenda, but since the majority of voting power is not on their side, they can be laughed out every time.

        This is why Google shares are not worth that much, they're only good for trading. The investors don't control Google.

      • Google wouldn't wast the money (Score:4, Insightful)

        by ShatteredDream ( 636520 ) on Thursday February 10, 2005 @08:48PM (#11637495) Homepage
        If the content about Google is inaccurate than Google is free to post a correction, are they not? Is that not one of the big ooh, ahh features of Wikipedia? Second, consider the fact that it costs money for Google to file a lawsuit and what would be the point in agreeing to host content, hosting it, then deciding that you didn't like it and suing the creator over it? Chances are, Google would be laughed out of court.

      • Re:It's awesome... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by daviddennis ( 10926 ) <david@amazing.com> on Friday February 11, 2005 @12:08AM (#11638751) Homepage
        Can you imagine the headlines on Slashdot and other media if Google tried to censor Wikipedia? It would destroy their reputation for "not being evil" utterly, and I know Google values that enormously, not only as a moral principle, but as part of their marketing.

        If you haven't noticed, their article on Google [wikipedia.org] includes unfavourable information such as a mention of low salaries and a whole section on criticism of the search engine.

        Google is aware that there are plenty of outlets in which unfavourable information about their company can be aired. I really don't think they have any plans to try and suppress news about their company. I'm sure they know all too well that it would be impossible.

        D

    • Re:It's awesome... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by brian.glanz ( 849625 )

      Particularly as it is Google's mission to "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful," it is especially striking that they acknowledge any wiki type ability to do so, presumably with enough sophistication that Google does not want to duplicate and/or surpass the wiki. Google is paying yet another compliment to concepts which are theoretically aligned with OSS. Heads way up!

      BG

    • Re:It's awesome... (Score:5, Informative)

      by goon america ( 536413 ) on Thursday February 10, 2005 @07:56PM (#11637045) Homepage Journal
      Plenty more people would do so if there were an official mirroring system for Wikipedia, which there is not. All kinds of people would be tripping over themselves to lend bandwidth and servers to them if there were such as process, and IIRC they've gotten offers before from universities and such.

      If Google wants to help out, I don't see why they should be get any kind of special access. The ball is not in Google's court, but in Wikipedia's.

      (No disrespect to Vibber and the guys keeping the servers at Wikipedia HQ online; they're doing god's work. But the site would probably be a lot more stable with an army of official mirrors than with a single, monolithic server farm.)

  • One idea as to why Google is doing this.... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by MBraynard ( 653724 ) on Thursday February 10, 2005 @07:38PM (#11636863) Journal
    so when you do a google search on a particular subject - you get an immediate link at the top to the related wiki entries.

    But others could do this, too? So maybe Wiki can limit the ability of others to do this, and give this ability exclusively to Google?

    What I am trying to ascertain is what value can Wiki give google other than advert space, which is apparently not part of the current deal?

    • The Wikimedia Foundation would send google packing if they demanded any such exclusive deal. None of the directors would stand for it, much less the many other participants in the various Wikimedia projects.
      • Furthermore, it isn't even within the Wikimedia Foundation's power to grant an exclusive deal to anybody. Wikipedia's content is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. Everybody can use, copy, redistribute, and modify Wikipedia content without fear of violating any law (which is why you see many crap sites such as this one [fact-index.com] repackaging wikipedia content with ads). It's hard to see how anybody could make an exclusive deal with Wikipedia when the content is free for everybody to copy at will. I
    • so when you do a google search on a particular subject - you get an immediate link at the top to the related wiki entries.

      Couldn't Google write its own software and do this on its own? It doesn't seem like Google would have to help out Wikipedia to do this, just like you can have Google search within individual websites (that Google never gave any bandwidth to).

      But others could do this, too? So maybe Wiki can limit the ability of others to do this, and give this ability exclusively to Google?

      Wikipe

    • Re:One idea as to why Google is doing this.... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by RedWizzard ( 192002 ) on Thursday February 10, 2005 @07:48PM (#11636978)
      What I am trying to ascertain is what value can Wiki give google other than advert space, which is apparently not part of the current deal?
      Here a few possibilities:
      • PR, which Google clearly values highly,
      • generally increased use of the net (i.e. it's in Google's interests to support anything that adds value to the net as a whole),
      • they might request a link be placed at the bottom (or top) of each article that does a Google search for the article's title.
      • Microsoft also has Encarta. Now google has wikipedia. Anything that stops people being reliant on a Microsoft product (Encarta in this case) is good news for Google as it means less money to Microsoft.

        Now why Google has pitted itself against Microsoft I'm not too sure. But with msn search and gmail, they're definitely competing.
    • What I am trying to ascertain is what value can Wiki give google other than advert space, which is apparently not part of the current deal?
      Good will PR? An opportunity to show they still want to "do no evil"?

    • Value (Score:4, Insightful)

      by ucblockhead ( 63650 ) on Thursday February 10, 2005 @07:55PM (#11637026) Homepage Journal
      Google's value to the customer is its ability to get good information to that customer. Anything that improves the general quality of information on the internet improves Google's value to the customer.

    • Re:One idea as to why Google is doing this.... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by MOMOCROME ( 207697 ) <momocrome AT gmail DOT com> on Thursday February 10, 2005 @07:56PM (#11637038)
      Google needs to solve the problem of people searching a term to get a rough idea of the meaning. They've got it covered for definitions, but more advanced concepts are still wanting.

      As it is, say you are interested about what happened in 1033 AD. If you search for "1033" you get a range of pages that have anything to do with 1033 AD, instead you get info abobut RFC 1033, port 1033, california legislation s.1033, and so on. If you search for "1033 AD" you likewise get a wide range of incidental and nearly useless trivia about 1033 AD, with very little in the way of comprehensive overview.

      Wikipedia has an entire page on the events of every year starting at around 900 AD, iirc. It should be the first hit for searches like that. Google is looking for a means to justify making it so, without complaint from the wikioids and without complaint from the people stressing over page rank for their site. Expect a section with an automatic overview of the wikipedia entry, similar to how they are placing image search results at the top of some searches now, or like they do with news.

      The deal here is that google wants to retain the lead spot for quick reference needs. Wikipedia serves that purpose very well, but I'd say most people don't know to check it out.

  • Nice for wikipedia (Score:4, Interesting)

    by chris09876 ( 643289 ) on Thursday February 10, 2005 @07:39PM (#11636868)
    I wonder what google is going to get out of the arrangement. The link says that it doens't mean Wikipedia will have to put ads on their site. It's always possible Google's just trying to do something nice ...but I'm a bit skeptical.

  • Slashdot Donating Hits and Trolls to Wikipedia (Score:5, Funny)

    by mbrubeck ( 73587 ) on Thursday February 10, 2005 @07:39PM (#11636872) Homepage
    "According to this post [slashdot.org], Slashdot plans to help Wikipedia by using up bandwidth and adding to their increasing load."
  • ...when I heard about Google maps. I wondered how long it would take Google to start their own wiki, then I decided they wouldn't be likely to duplicate the efforts of Wikipedia. Didn't occur to me that they might do this instead. Cool.

  • They need it. (Score:5, Informative)

    by irokitt ( 663593 ) <[archimandrites-iaur] [at] [yahoo.com]> on Thursday February 10, 2005 @07:40PM (#11636879)
    It usually is a 10 minute process to login to Wikipedia and call up an edit page. Not to mention that this might help with all of the Slashdottings Wikipedia's servers have to survive;)

  • We should all be cheerleading for Google (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sisukapalli1 ( 471175 ) on Thursday February 10, 2005 @07:40PM (#11636880)
    Google is able to pull off new stuff while sticking to "do no evil" philosophy. And, what more, because of competition from Google, Yahoo has started offering better services (e.g. the Yahoo toolbar for firefox). So, good for the end user.

    S
  • Is there anything it can't do?

    All joking aside. If this does pan out.. wow. Just wow.

    Now let's sit back and hear all the conspiracy theories about how Google is slowly preparing for world domination. :-)

  • No ads required (Score:5, Interesting)

    by melted ( 227442 ) on Thursday February 10, 2005 @07:41PM (#11636895) Homepage
    I would actually not mind Google ads on the bottom of Wikipedia pages if they're relevant. Let's say I'm reading about some scientific shit on there, and google suggests a few books on the bottom of the page. I migh just as well go ahead and buy them.

  • Why Not use AdSense? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by LostCluster ( 625375 ) * on Thursday February 10, 2005 @07:41PM (#11636898)
    Currently, Wikipedia is relying on charitable donations in order to get its funding... but why don't they just add the Google AdSense code into their pages?

    Even their own Advertising on Wikipedia [wikimedia.org] policy page admits ads are going to happen someday. Wouldn't this be the best way for them to go?
    • I think this would be a bad thing. I feel that an encylopedia should be impartial. Having ads about what you are currently looking at doesn't seem very impartial it would look like an endorsement.

    • Re:Why Not use AdSense? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Captain Nitpick ( 16515 ) on Thursday February 10, 2005 @08:12PM (#11637189)
      Even their own Advertising on Wikipedia policy page admits ads are going to happen someday. Wouldn't this be the best way for them to go?

      Did you intentionally read that incorrectly, or what?

      Advertising is not going to happen on Wikipedia. The last time it was half-heartedly entertained, the Spanish Wikipedia misinterpreted it as a definitive statement and forked.

  • I, for one... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 10, 2005 @07:42PM (#11636904)
    don't have to finish that sentence.

  • Uh huh (Score:2, Funny)

    by discordja ( 612393 )
    Yeah, linking it on /. is a great way to help out their "increasing bandwidth" problem

  • Bah (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 10, 2005 @07:43PM (#11636915)
    This is a bad idea. Wikipedia is so full of convoluted articles it isn't even funny. Don't get me wrong, there's some good information there, but a lot of articles have information in them that makes you go "WTF!" There is an article about where I live on there, and I noticed it is icorrect, so I edited it. Some guy, who seems to think to article is his baby changed it back. Whenever anyone changes it he changes it back, because he wrote it. According to his user page he also lives here, but he has no idea what the hell he's talking about. He also wrote and polices several other articles related to where I live, and they all present his convoluted and incorrect information. That is the problem with Wikipedia.

    • Re:Bah (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      And there are processes you can invoke which will stop him doing that. File a request for mediation, present clear evidence that you are right and he is wrong, and bingo, your version of the truth goes there and he will face a ban if he tries to change it back.

      You sound suspiciously like all those people who refused to vote last fall and now hang around whining about Bush's policies. THERE ARE SYSTEMS IN PLACE TO LET YOU CHANGE THINGS YOU DON'T LIKE - if you aren't willing to make use of them, quit whini

    • Re:Bah (Score:3, Funny)

      by danila ( 69889 )
      This is a bad idea. Wikipedia is so full of convoluted articles it isn't even funny. Don't get me wrong, there's some good information there, but a lot of articles have information in them that makes you go "WTF!"

      As opposed to WWW and Usenet archives already indexed/hosted by Google?
  • I guess Google changed its moto from "Do no evil!" to "Help the needy!"

  • Something stinks here... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I really like Wikipedia and hope it gets more atention with time, but there's just something wrong with this deal. I think the question to ask ourselves is what does Google get from this. Bandwidth is expensive, especially on such a high load site as Wikipedia so I'm taking this with care.

    I bet $10 there _will_ be Google ads on wikipedia if the deal goes down. Google giving bandwidth for free doesn't sound right from the marketing perspective, even for Google.

    Or maybe, just maybe, there is something bigge
    • let me assure you that bandwidth is all but expensive for google. they aren't your local ISP that commits to 10mbps a month (at a price of 150$/mbits). google buys bandwidth by the GigE load, they pay a few dollars per mbps

      to give you an idea, if you commit to 1gbps, you can usually get prices around 20$/mbits (of course, you'll also see it offered at 80$/mbits but that's another matter), now i imagine google commits to tens of gigabits/s so it's likely to be even lower. (as i said, i've heard a few $ per

    • Re:Something stinks here... (Score:4, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 10, 2005 @08:18PM (#11637241)
      From Google's mission statement page:
      Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.
      wikiPedia is chock full of good, well organized information. Check out wikipedia's statistics. [wikipedia.org] Donating equipment and bandwidth to wikipedia is an investment, and a pretty damn good one.
    • With the amount of bandwidth that Google uses, I doubt helping out Wikipedia is going to cost them that much.

      I'm glad they're doing it, even if it means a "Hosting kindly donated by Google" message at the bottom of the page, or even ads. The last few times I've tried to access Wikipedia, I've given up waiting for it to load.

  • Another jab at MSN? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sangreal66 ( 740295 ) on Thursday February 10, 2005 @07:44PM (#11636935)
    Seems like Google hasn't taken to kindly to Microsoft's recent launch of the new MSN Search. Last week they moved Google Local to the front page in an apparent effort to meet Microsoft's localization feature. This move looks to me like an attempt at meeting Microsoft's Encarta integration.
    • I know of no more clear-cut example of the difference between proprietary and open source than the contrast between Encarta and Wikipedia.

      Wikipedia is open to anyone who wishes to contribute and gosh, it still works. Content is added constantly and crud is scrubbed off by people who care, sort of like a child growing. Professionally I'm embedded in the Microsoft camp (what's there to fix in the Apple environment after all? And Linux is too much fun -- I get distracted) but I never use Encarta, and I'm co

  • Once again... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Snaller ( 147050 ) on Thursday February 10, 2005 @07:45PM (#11636949) Journal
    ... it appears that Google does good. The only bad thing I can think of is their Google Groups 2 which should be sent into outer space and nuked.

  • A letter to Google (Score:5, Interesting)

    by DiscoBobby ( 196458 ) * on Thursday February 10, 2005 @07:48PM (#11636981)
    Dear Google,
    Could you guys be any cooler? Hey, I know I'm a geeky Google fanboy, you make me look smart at my job every day. I'm not pretending otherwise, let's get that straight. It's hard not to like a friend like that. And I know you've had PR issues with employee bloggers, but on balance you guys do more "good things" than just about any other Big Evil Internet Corporation around. Granted, the Gates Foundation gives a lot of money to worthy causes, but their patron takes our money and freedom with the other hand. Long term you probably want to make a buck off Wikipedia, and you're getting your foot in the door now. They ARE one of the best resources around, and it fits your strategy of being the answer to just about any question.

    But strangely, I trust you guys not to screw it up, unlike some others (Micro*cough*) I can think of. I think you're crazy enough to let Wikipedia run under it's own editorial control - if you can call it that ;) - without heavy-handed corporate meddling. I hope you'll just let it purr along with minimal intervention and let it make you money. Better Google than MS, I say. And if it's really just a charity gesture, well, a big hellyeah and mucho goodwill to you all.

  • I wonder if they will help Gutenburg? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by WindBourne ( 631190 ) on Thursday February 10, 2005 @07:54PM (#11637021) Journal
    The gutenberg project is another that is deserving of bandwidth and servers.
  • First get in good with all of us geeks and internet junkies. Then, once you cant imagine life without google (search, groups, gmail, maps, gpedia? ), they take it all hostage! When you go to google.com you will be greeted with "donate now" link (through some paypal-like service that google will start and most likely do better than paypal) and if one billion is not reached by next month in donations the sites go down for a month. and this happens every month... man, they're good...

  • Please read the fine print (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Everyman ( 197621 ) on Thursday February 10, 2005 @07:55PM (#11637035) Homepage
    I would strongly advise Wikipedia to refuse any nondisclosure agreements, and carefully read the fine print on other agreements. The libraries that thought it was so cool to get their books indexed signed nondisclosure agreements. This could be embarrassing at some point down the line....

    "We are moving to a Google that knows more about you." --Eric Schmidt, speaking to analysts yesterday, as quoted in the New York Times today

  • Knowledge is power (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ninjamonkey ( 694442 ) on Thursday February 10, 2005 @07:58PM (#11637064) Homepage
    Google seems to understand that knowledge, and the dissemination of knowledge, is power.

    If you can provide people the most efficient way of providing information important to them, people will deal with advertisements and other methods to generate revenue, as long as they are inobtrusive.

    Wikipedia is a great source for many different types of general knowledge, and while it may not be the ultimate resource for obtaining information about a certain topic, it is a great place to start to get a general overview.

    Maybe Google sees this as a great addition their search engine: when searching, a person is supplied with a brief description of the topic at hand and search results to further their research, perhaps grouped into categories. If Google can make themselves a living, breathing entity like Wikipedia has, with input from users, perhaps they can gain an edge over other search engines.

  • Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday February 10, 2005 @08:15PM (#11637212)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Encarta (Score:4, Insightful)

    by zyridium ( 676524 ) on Thursday February 10, 2005 @08:26PM (#11637321)
    This is simply a strategic move to compete with Microsoft and it's inclusion of Encarta in MSN Search...

  • power elite (Score:4, Insightful)

    by delirium of disorder ( 701392 ) on Thursday February 10, 2005 @08:27PM (#11637336) Homepage Journal
    Being able to search nearly all of humanity's knowledge is extremely powerfull. Being able to help create and build the data infastructure that eventually much of the industrilised world will relay on gives each and every one of us intellectual omnipotence.

    The fact that anyone with an internet connection now can harness this much power must really disturb the politicians and CEOs who relay on our mediocre education system and centralised media to keep the masses ignorant and those with some knowledge incapable of sharing it. It's difficult to sniff ssh connections on hacked wifi Access Points. It's impossable to regulate freenet, tor, or even most conventional p2p networks. Google and wikipedia offer even more robust and democratic services, but they unfortunatly are very centralised. Google has pledged to do no evil, but I can imagine that the leaders of many hierarchical entities, from Microsoft to the NSA, would love to just watch (much less control) the content of these forces of potential social transformation and enlightnment. If google and wikipedia form a stronger alliance and people begin to use and contribute more, I suspect that the service will risk being shut down if it doesn't sell out to survalience, censorship and marketing/advertising. Google and wikipedia stand out as nonpareil examples of all thats good on the net. They can help each other out, but lets be vigilent to ensure their and our freedom.

  • ...excessive concern about one's own well-being... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by jchap ( 628091 ) on Thursday February 10, 2005 @08:52PM (#11637516) Homepage
    Does anyone share the growing feeling of concern and unease that I have about Google?

    I thought the days of single online providers (Compuserve) was over but now it seems like Google wants to be the entire internet. They 'own' web searching (and therefore in the current state of affairs the web itself), they 'own' image searching and Usenet. Instead of loging onto the 'net it's becoming increasingly the case that you boot up Google instead.

    Wikipedia looks like it could become the next major online success (and Google's actions kinda endorse this prediction) but instead of being happy with this state of affairs I'm wondering how long it will be before I only have one page in my 'sites to check daily' folder: Google.

    Of course if you take a Capitalist kind of viewpoint this all looks very good for Google: it's taking over *because* it's so good. It's success is justifed - well done Google - no problem here.

    My problem is that I see a rather nasty monopoly at the end of all this. If it is Google's intention to expand into every online nook it will not be a good thing for the internet as a whole. In fact a single critical set of servers seems to me to be exactly the opposite of what was intended. Aside from the already massive over-reliance on Google for both business and personal use, the ever increasing tempation for them to abuse their position as the gatekeepers of information in general and the damage done to the internet design philosphy as a whole, my major concern would be governmental interference*: let's face it, governments want control of people and Google's servers already give a quite stunning amount of insight into what is going through our collective heads. Even if you believe that Google (the company) is incorruptible, a single centre of such power would be viewed with great envy by a shit load of people who are.

    Remember that feeling when the 'net was still young - you had it because there was no single dominant hierarchy in control. Already that feeling is fading fast - don't let it disappear altogether. The associative information held on Google is already too bloody dangerous to be kept a secret. Open it up guys - then I'll believe how much you care.

    * There is a theory that this has already happened!

  • It can't hurt (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Jedi_Knyghte ( 763576 ) on Thursday February 10, 2005 @09:46PM (#11637821)
    Famous last words, I know, but Wikipedia really does need the help. Even ignoring any ./-ing, their response time is degrading. If Google wants to help, more power to them, says I.

  • Wikipedia already integrated into Google (Score:3, Informative)

    by Cyberop5 ( 520141 ) * on Thursday February 10, 2005 @10:14PM (#11638009) Homepage Journal
    With the definitions recently changing from dictionary.com to answers.com, Google has begun using Wikipedia in its searches. If you look up a definition, the resulting [answers.com] answers.com page has a subsection from Wikipedia.

    Google could be feeling bad about burning up the resources of a free organization so they are giving back by way of servers and bandwidth.

    The question is, are the ads on answers.com Google AdSense?

  • Answers.com is the reason (Score:5, Interesting)

    by vandalman ( 746235 ) on Thursday February 10, 2005 @10:24PM (#11638077)
    Google is now linking to answers.com for defining terms. Answers.com uses Wikipedia as part of it's search results. The bandwidth for answers.com is going up and therefore Wikipedia's bandwidth is likely to go up. Google is just trying to protect it's investment and get some cool points along the way.

  • They Already Are (Score:3, Interesting)

    by cyberformer ( 257332 ) on Friday February 11, 2005 @01:14AM (#11639063)
    Wikipedia is the top (or near top) search result for an incrasing number of search terms in Google. The site can't handle all that traffic, so lots of people end up having to click on the "cached" link after waiting a few seconds and seeing an error message.

    This is simply a way of making it official. Google won't be using any more bandwidth or RAM than its cache of Wikipedia already needs, but itwill save users a few seconds and some frustration.

  • Encarta vs Wikipedia (Score:3, Insightful)

    by xmpcray ( 636203 ) on Friday February 11, 2005 @01:21AM (#11639101)
    The new MSN search offers searching through Encarta, maybe Google plans to offer searching through Wikipedia in the future?

  • This is exactly what I want to see! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by crashnbur ( 127738 ) on Friday February 11, 2005 @02:17AM (#11639365)
    This is exactly what I want to see: two of the best (and free!) internet services available working together! Google is by far the best internet search engine (for images, news, newsgroups, random web sites, etc.) and also has the best set of language and map tools, among other things. And WikiPedia -- what else can be said? -- it's simply one of the best ideas ever put to action.

    I wonder... What if Google and WikiPedia kinda-sorta merge? Imagine the power of Google behind the biggest, baddest, and best encyclopedia ever created -- one freely available to anyone who wishes to browse it or also available on DVD (superversion!) or CD (lite version?). Hell, WikiPedia could do that on their own. Get someone to write program the querying and interface, burn a few prototype discs, find something that works, and ship it! Keep it simple! *ponders the idea*

  • A few facts, plans and such... (Score:4, Informative)

    by Jamesday ( 794888 ) on Friday February 11, 2005 @05:39AM (#11640106)
    No plans for Google ads. We do send search to either Google or Yahoo now when the database servers are under an uncomfortable amount of load. I'm usually the person making that decision and I decide solely based on balancing server load and reduced service.

    Instead of static caches we're using Squid caches which get updated automatically when the content changes. We're looking to place more of these in other places which use significant amounts of bandwidth or are far from Florida in response time terms.

    We're aware of the risk of excessive dependence on one donor and are looking to avoid it. We're entirely happy to talk with other companies who want to share in being seen to be helping something obviously good, limited only by the suitability of the offers for our needs. I don't know what the Wikimedia Foundation board would say but personally I'm entirely happy to accept hosting from Yahoo, Microsoft, AOL or any other significant player. In my personal opinion, neutral means just that - including neutral toward all companies in the business.

    If any competitor is concerned about Google getting undue benefit or prominence, the solution is simple enough: talk with us as well.

    We have offers of various sorts in Europe (though more, particularly from major carriers with excellent peering arrangements, would be very welcome) and the US. We don't yet have a substantial offer in Asia and that's a major hole I'd personally love to see filled. We're very popular in Japan and a location with good peering in Japan would be good for service there.

    By this time next year I'd like to see 2-6 major remote sites with database slaves and apache web servers, capable of taking over as master if there's a failure in Florida, plus 10-20+ remote Squid caching sites. A massive amount of work (and donations) required to get that done.

    We've already been blocked from China ourselves on several occasions. I've little doubt that it'll happen again and in other places as well from time to time.

    It's absolutely certain that we have some unknown, uncorrected copyright infringement, offensive content, politically incorrect items for various parts of the world and assorted other things some or many people find undesirable. If the chairman of the board or president of the country is making headlines worldwide for some indiscretion, expect it to be in the article. Nobody who is unduly concerned about such things should consider offering hosting - we can't guarantee the absence of such content, just that we will try to be neutral.

    We're not only interested in hosting and bandwidth. I'm particularly interested in high performance disk drives or systems, high capacity RAM modules (database servers like RAM but 32GB of ECC costs $11,000...) or whole high power database servers. To give some idea, I'm thinking in terms of three quad Opterons with 32GB of RAM and 12-16 15,000 RPM SCSI drives to keep up with demand for just the English language encyclopedia project over the next 6-9 months.

    No part of this post should be taken as representing the official views of the Wikimedia Foundation or any members of its board. It is, of course, blatant soliciting for donations, as you'd expect from the guy who does much of the capacity planning...:)

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