What’s next for wikis

In Wikipedia’s infancy, it arrogantly dubbed itself the “Google Killer.” Everyone laughed, until it became one of the ten most popular sites in the world; effectively conquering the infamous Google Algorithm. Now, Wikipedia may be on a suicidal mission to destroy the open source chaos that made it great. How? Bureaucracy.

It’s no surprise Google is waiting to pick up Wikipedia’s remains. Oh, it’s tried before and failed. Anyone remember Knol? However, Google Wave embodies all the chaos Wikipedians thrive on while lacking the complicated interface Mediawiki employs. With the first introduction to Google Wave released this week it will be interesting to see how it works as a content management system.

Personally, I’m willing to bet that if Mediawiki refuses to adapt that Google Wave will become the next open source encyclopedia. Technologies may come and go, but open source content creation is here to stay.