20600794-Entry-7: Web 2.0 Series #4: Wiki

What is wiki? Inspired by a name Wiki Wiki shuttle bus in Honolulu airport, wiki is way to create an online content by everyone. This means anyone can change, modify and create a content a certain web page. It gives a lot of dynamics and updates to web pages. A good example of this kind of web page as we all know www.wikipedia.org.

But how does wiki can be used in a business. There are certain ways. I

- f a company enters a market it can enter its information into the popular wiki pages, they are mostly free. People these days mostly refer to wikipedia or wiki pages when they look for information. Even it’s not that reliable, it gets refreshed often. Also wiki pages are mostly free to use.

- If company creates a brand or product, it can open that brand’s wiki page, so people can actually write about that product, their experiences and problems. So it can be a good way to get feedback from users. There are many brands that use wiki as a user feedback center. For example, game brand called World of Warcraft by Blizzard Entertainment (one of the biggest video came makers in the world). World of Warcraft or WoW in short has a huge fan base and Blizzard has a official wiki website for WoW users so that users can freely update and change, create information about WoW. It is a useful way to improve its product.

There are many other ways to use Wiki as business tool. For Business Strategy using new technology and new trends like Wiki as early as possible would actually give a good position in that aspect later on. For example, Wikipedia is one of the pioneers of wiki pages and now it’s the biggest. Even it’s a non-profit organization, many people are employed in there. Millions of people use it, so it can be used as a business tool later on.