Wikipedia productized
Perhaps no business has been so transformed by open source as encyclopedias.
The appearance of Wikipedia, and its many cousins, rivals and inlaws, has wrecked the business. Even giant Microsoft's Encarta has succumbed, as of the end of this month.
We all know the jokes about Wikipedia's accuracy, but since it beat the Encyclopedia Brittanica in a blind taste test nearly four years ago attention has focused more on making it better, or creating rivals to it, than knocking the idea of open source, crowdsourced content.
And now it's in a box. Meet the Wikireader.
It's about the size of a portable alarm clock, with a one-color screen, a MicroSD card, and a touchscreen with three buttons, running on two AAA batteries. Update the card on the company's Web site or they'll send you four updates a year for $30. The retail price is $99.
The designer is Sean Moss-Pultz, last seen helming the failed OpenMoko mobile phone project. It's cute, and it has enough marketing muscle behind it to have a chance.
Will we see it under your Christmas tree this year? Maybe you know a kid who can use it, or a know-it-all relative.
It's also part of a general trend, specialized, mass market devices designed to access just one piece of the Web. Certainly a trend worth watching.
I don't know if you've ever thought of owning a really fine set of encyclopedias (my office has one from 1883) and I don't know if you'd call Wikipedia fine. But at $99 it's cheap as chips.