The Rise of Amateur

Wikipedia's numbers actually make it an anomaly among wikis. Joe Kraus, the co-founder of JotSpot, a provider of wiki software, reckons that most of the millions of wikis already in existence are designed for small, well-defined groups of people. Team members in a company, for instance, might use wikis to collaborate on presentations or project calendars. Wikis are communities, and “communities require trust,” says Mr Kraus. Trust comes most easily when the people involved know one another or are accountable for their contributions. Given that the optimal group size for humans may be less than 150 members (see the article on blogging earlier in this survey), most wikis might be expected to be small.