Startups
Jun. 16, 2009 12:11 pm
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Look, this is down right embarrassing.
Earlier this month we retweeted Viddler founder Rob Sandie. He was self-promoting, but damn it if we didn’t agree with him. Why didn’t the growing video-hosting service have a Wikipedia entry? Now that Google News has begun to link to the Web’s largest community-edited encyclopedia, it’s clear it’s bypassed mainstream and shot straight to influential.
So, it’s become something of shorthand for the importance of a subject, person or organization. But, as we found, Philadelphia generally and its technology and innovation communities specifically are dismally represented in the Web 2.0 powerhouse.
When someone answered Sandie’s call to create a Viddler Wikipedia page, it was deleted because, as one Wiki editor wrote, the article was “about a web site, blog, online forum, webcomic, podcast, or similar web content that didn’t assert the importance or significance of its subject.”
Sounds like a call to make clear the Philadelphia technology scene is significant. Below, we share our list of 10 members of our community that don’t have Wikipedia entries, but should, including Viddler.
We respect the mission of Wikipedia, so don’t consider this spam posting. Rather, we think our community is very underserved by the online encyclopedia. This, my friends, is basic stuff we need to get down. Who’s stepping up?
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Oh, and when you’re done with all of these, you ought to spruce up RedLasso and First Round Capital and make sure our community gets whatever credit you think it deserves.
We’re a mature yet still growing technology scene, so it sure seems like we ought to be represented in the Wiki behemoth.
Yes, there is WikiPhilly.com, which needs some beefing up itself, but we need to start where the world’s eyeballs go, so why not put our best foot forward on Wikipedia?
Is this a stupid idea? Who’s going to do it? Did we leave anyone out? Or is some group listed here not deserving?
This just might be a semi-regular department we may or may not call Top Ten Tuesdays. There’s no judging in brainstorming.
Staff writers Brian James Kirk and Sean Blanda contributed to this report.
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