I’m addicted to five tv’s Gadget Show. They show off really cool gear and always find some weird website doing odd things. And while they don’t have the immediacy of Techcrunch, to many people, they can be a source of first hand knowledge. This is what they had to say about wiki this week:
This week we’ve looked into probably the most revolutionary and truly original use of the internet yet. A creation that’s spawned thousands of information exchanges. And the name behind this innovation is Wiki…
The fact is that Wikipedia is far from perfect, and, unlike Britannica, can prove unreliable as a sole source of information. But on this one site you will find more information on more topics in more detail than anywhere else in the world. As long as you use it as a first source, which you then check and double check elsewhere, it is brilliant.
It’s such a pity the station only culls an audience <2.2 million each week. These presenters know how to put complex topics over in a simple manner. Pity the show’s website doesn’t have RSS or any links in the transcripts!
But as a bonus, they talked about Frank Hornby, the inventor of Meccano. Presenter Suzi Perry said:
One thing that shows just how shrewd a businessman old Frank was, is the way he developed the Meccano brand by basically getting his customers to do the work for him. He would run competitions offering prizes for the most original and clever construction designs. Everyone entering the competitions would have to hand over their designs, and within a few months the best ones would reappear in Meccano instruction manuals.
Meccano proved hugely addictive to those who got into it – whatever they built, they wanted to build something bigger and when they’d built that, they wanted to build something bigger again. And of course that meant buying more Meccano.
Hmm…so all this community stuff has been tried before – in an earlier age. And to great effect. And there I was thinking Hugh really had found a great secret.
Technorati Tags: cluetrain, innovation, techcrunch, wiki
