WikiPilipinas, hip ‘n free Philippine Encyclopedia–the Press Launch
Posted on August 26, 2007
Filed Under Information, Promoting Filipino Image, School, ACET, UPCAT, etc | Viewed 2859 times
On the invite of Blooey, some of us bloggers, Abe, Jayvee, Gail, Noemi, Ajay, and myself, together with mainstream media, attended the formal launching to the press of WikiPilipinas last Wednesday, 22 August at the Milky Way Restaurant in Makati. WikiPilipinas is an online, free content enyclopedia on the Philippines, in addition to encyclopedic entries in history, culture, sports, politics, and other knowledge areas. It is a popular knowledge portal, the counterpart of Filipiniana.net, launched in November 2006 by the same group—Vibal Publishing, which offers “scholarly content.
Gus Vibal, its founder spoke on a lot of interesting things, and walked us through the site, which currently contains 33,000 published entries, classified into 12 knowledge portals: people and society; culture and arts; media and entertainment; sports and leisure; history; economy and business; government and politics; geography and travel; religion and beliefs; science and technology; Philippine communities; and Philippine internet directory.
What was striking was how he acknowledged the influence of bloggers, which Chris Andersen describes as the Long Tail. A person with a small idea can defeat a big idea. Small ideas and blogs can have the same power as that written in say, the Philippine Daily Inquirer. Mr. Vibal called on the mainstream media to listen to the blogging community, as nowadays, blogs are widely read. A common person now has access to publishing power, through blogs.
By the way, just after 24 hours that WikiPilipinas was launched, the news was immediately picked up by local television networks, print media, and members of the influential blogging community. Starting from a handful of visitors, its website traffic scaled exponentially to 250 by 6 pm, 780 visitors by 7:49 pm, and tens of thousands by 12 midnight. By noon the following day, WikiPilipinas reached the 100,000 visitor mark making it one of the fastest growing internet start-ups in Philippine history.
Gus Vibal invites everyone to JOIN THE KNOWLEDGE REVOLUTION and make it a national goal to reach 100,000 published entries within a year, to propel it among the top 10 wiki encyclopedias of the world (currently held by the Englih, French, Chinese, Dutch, Spanish, German, Polish, Italian, Portuguese, and Swedish wikis). WikiPilipinas allows users to ADD, REMOVE, EDIT, and SHARE CONTENTS easily and quickly. This will make every Filipina and Filipino proud of, and “serve as a proof that Philippine culture has the depth and substance to stand among the best in the world”.
Gus Vibal and his team of knowledge workers at WikiPilipinas invite volunteers, young and old, from all over the world to join and contribute in expanidng this knowledge portal. The public is invited to visit WikiPilipinas exhibit at the Manila International Book Fair on 29 August-2 September 2007 at the World Trade Center in Pasay City for a sneak-peek and a walk-though to participate in live demonstrations and tutorials on the Philippine wiki revolution.
Photos: (1) with Analyn, Noemi, Gail and Abe, (2) with Analyn and Noemi-we won books in the Bingo game, and (3) with Gus Vibal.
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9 Responses to “WikiPilipinas, hip ‘n free Philippine Encyclopedia–the Press Launch”
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Dine Racoma is Sexy Mom, a Filipina doing what she likes best—writing, her passion. She writes freelance, does research, advises on new media, and manages a virtual assistance office for home-based jobs. A mother of 7 (what joy!) foremost, a wife, MIL, grandma to 2 pretty girls and an angel in heaven, sister, daughter, friend. Was in the corporate world for 27 years, the first 5 as Executive Secretary to an affiliate of the country’s biggest drug chain, and the last 22 as an international civil servant in an international development bank with HQ in Manila. Traveled extensively to many countries bringing about rich experiences and lessons learned to share with dear Readers. All these—in The D Spot
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Wow!
This is awesome! I’ll definitely visit this portal!
Have a blessed Sunday ahead tita!
This is good! Will it have “tagalog” entries? Para when my kids have assignments in makabayan or Filipino, madaling makapag research at hindi mahirap magtranslate sa tagalog.
Sexy Mom: If you go to their site, you will see that in future, they will have WikiFilipino, WikiCebuano, WikiTaglish, WikiBicol, WikiWaray, WikiKpampangan, WikiIloko, and WikiFilipinas.
Lot of work ahead!
Nice seeing you there Dine (and winning the book along with you) Btw, it’s Vibal I think, hehe
SexyMom: nice seeing you there, too, Ajay.
oooppps, i have corrected it, thanks.
Jho, WikiPilipinas intends to launch local language editions of their website but there’s only the English edition for the meantime. But if you want, there’s already a Tagalog Wikipedia (http://tl.wikipedia.org), and Wikipedias in Chavacano de Zamboanga, Cebuano, Ilocano, Kapampangan, Pangasinan, Waray. There are plans to also create Bicolano, Hiligaynon (Ilonggo), and Kiniray-a too.
Sounds like a successful event. Thanks for sharing the photos.
Great project Tita !
ay, you were there pala, tita diane. sayang di ako nagpunta hehehe. dapat nakapagpa-picture din po ako with you ;). i was surprised you blogged about WikiPilipinas.org. I also blogged about it yesterday. Thank you po.
“wow” was the first thing that came to my mind, the secon was “about time!”
I will definitely check this out. Ano kaya macontribute ko?
