Yesterday the world lost an icon in the passing of Michael Jackson. The whole world watched as news broke over various online resources, eventually proving that the King of Pop nearly took the Internet with him.
As Virginia turns to the general election, the articles about Democratic candiate Creigh Deeds and Republican Bob McDonnell will be both important resources as well as the locus of battles to establish narratives about each candidate. Indeed, both articles are the top non-official sites listed in Google searches for each candidate’s name. Which one is better?
Wikipedia was in the news for another hoax last week when a college undergraduate student posted erroneous information about deceased French composer Maurice Jarre as an experiment to see if mainstream media publications would pick it up in their obituaries.
Earlier this week Microsoft announced it will soon be shutting down its digital encyclopedia, Encarta. The official statement t didn't actually use the word "Wikipedia," but then again, they didn't really need to. Wikipedia has 97% of the online encyclopedia market, according to Hitwise, a share that makes Google seem to barely have a foothold.
But this was by no means a totally foregone conclusion -- and it doesn't necessarily mean the end.