How does the idea of posting comments on Wikipedia articles sound? Well this is now possible with Empedia.com, a new community-based encyclopedia where users can “contribute” their personal experiences by posting directly.
Wikipedia has over 4 million articles touching on different topics all over the world. This is what Empedia is targeting, in order to make it possible for its users to add personal and other unique information on these articles.
Apart from just posting on the articles, users can create their own topics from scratch, including even those that might not be on Wikipedia’s database. In addition, users can post polls, ask questions or discuss on any topics.
Speaking to HumanIPO, Michael Kirk, of Infinite Insight Ltd, an African Research firm, said, “This is a good idea, and it might soon change how polls are carried out in Africa. Wikipedia is one of the most visited websites in the world, so by placing a discussion there using Empedia, you are assured of a definite response from readers, something that can significantly cut down on research costs.”
Built on the Wikipedia API, Empedia is seen as a good way to go, especially for the static Wikipedia articles, and allow people to interact. Africa being in its developing stage, has many people who are ‘information-hungry’ and this is not fully satisfied by the current state that many articles on Wikipedia are.
This will be a good chance for users in Africa to get direct comments and views about different issues, and the rest of the world.
As Empedia’s co-founder Joakim Fischer says, “The ultimate goal with Empedia is to extract unique information that exists within every person’s mind and publish that next to already existing information. If we can accomplish that in a broad manner, this service will be revolutionary for information findings online. We want to make Empedia accessible for everyone, everywhere and always.”
With the high penetration of Internet today, it is becoming more and more complicated to find relevant, concise information, as there is no particular place where you can find all of it in a well structured manner. Empedia vows to solve this problem.
At the moment, one can create an account with Empedia or log in using Facebook account.
