Wikipedia to challenge Google and Yahoo You gotta be kidding!

The on-line collaboration responsible for Wikipedia plans to build a search engine to rival those of Google and Yahoo, the founder of the popular Internet encyclopaedia said on Thursday.

Wikia, the commercial counterpart to the non-profit Wikipedia, is aiming to take as much as 5 percent of the lucrative Internet search market, Jimmy Wales said at a news conference in Tokyo.

"The idea that Google has some edge because they've got super-duper rocket scientists may be a little antiquated now," he said.

Describing the two Internet firms as "black boxes" that won't disclose how they rank search results, Wales said collaborative search technology could transform the power structure of the Internet.

Wales, a former futures trader who has become an evangelist for the free sharing of technology, said users could work together to improve search engines, just as Wikipedia users had tweaked and rewritten articles on the sprawling encyclopaedia.

The process of constant improvement would also make search technology less susceptible to spam, he said.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/internetNews/idUKT34811320070308