Wikipedia Replaces AMG/Muze Content - Web 2.0 Implications?

Everyone is throwing around buzz words such as Web 2.0 and CCC (Consumer Created Content) these days to reflect this recent trend of mixing and matching web technologies and user content to create a whole new set of services.  Normally, CCC reminds me of the Americas Funniest Home Video of the cat flying around the ceiling fan because much of user generated content is either staggeringly derivative, boring or just bad.

However, what recently struck a cord with me was the realization that multimedia search engine GoFish had cleverly used Wikipedia content to replace what was traditionally licensed content from Muze or AMG - click any GoFish artist listing and you'll see the content.  So rather than have paid editors spending their days writing artist biographies, GoFish uses the Wikipedia user-generated artist reviews (and I'm assuming at some point, wikipedia could add album reviews, etc) in place of paid content from others.  Not so good for AMG or Muze, but it's showing a path to using the collective intellect of the Internet to create content formerly done in a more top-down manner.  Yes, not all of it is incredibly good right now, and there is not necessarily a consistent editorial voice, but it will be compelling for a range of companies, especially as it inevitably improves.

Comments

[Gen Kanai]

Sean, GoFish isn't the first to do this. Upto11.net has been using wikipedia data since the launch of the service and what's even more cool is that Upto11.net users can edit band data and those edits get sent to Wikipedia and then are reflected back on the upto11.net site.

[Bob]

Sean,
Both Wikipedia and GoFish are really cool, but this is not unique. Wikipedia content is used all over the web. And "CCC", although considered another new New Thing, is really just another name for what has been happening on the web since the beginning: Yahoo and Amazon come to mind. As time moves on, and cool companies like GoFish grow (and get real revenues and profits), they typically move up the quality ladder and license professionally created content from suppliers like AMG or Muze. Nothing revolutionary here, it is just the nature of the beast.