Amapedia

Amapedia is a wiki where individuals can edit articles about products that they like. It was launched in January 2007 by the retailer Amazon.com. [ Scott Gilbertson, [http://blog.wired.com/monkeybites/2007/01/amazon_wikis_on.html "Amazon Wikis On The Moon"] , "Wired" magazine (blog), January 26, 2007] The name is a composite of "Amazon" and "encyclopedia". Anyone with an Amazon.com account can edit pages at the site.

Beginnings

The Amapedia.com domain name was registered in 2005. [ [http://whois.domaintools.com/amapedia.com Whois lookup of amapedia.com domain name] ] Jonah Cohen, a programmer who worked on the project in the summers of 2005 and 2006, described it as a "Wikipedia-inspired product website" in his resume, said it was developed with PHP and PostgreSQL. [ [http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/jonah/resume.pdf "Jeff Cohen" (resume) (pdf)] , retrieved February 29, 2008]

The wiki was launched in mid-2006 as "ProductWiki", then renamed Amapedia in early 2007. [Steve Weber, [http://www.weberbooks.com/2007/02/amazon-relaunches-productwikis-as.html "Amazon relaunches ProductWikis as Amapedia"] , weberbooks.com blog, February 4, 2007, retrieved February 29, 2008] As of February 2008, an amazon.com page still refers to the wiki as "ProductWiki", [ [http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?ie=UTF8&nodeId=43568011 "Help > Enhancing Your Shopping Experience > Our Site Features > Product Wiki"] , amazon.com page, retrieved February 29, 2008] .] [http://www.productwiki.com/ ProductWiki] is an entirely separate site.

Editing

Individual product pages on Amazon.com contain the text, "Be the first person to add an article about this item at Amapedia.com", if no article about the product exists.

Editing is done using a WYSIWYG interface (the buttons/icons available to the editor apply the specified formatting, which is immediately visible). There is a separate table editor.

Amazon retains the copyright to the content of the site and licenses the compilation for personal use only. [ [http://amapedia.amazon.com/view/Meta%3ATerms+of+Service Amapedia: Terms of Service] ]

Progress

In February 2007, a senior editor at "Business 2.0" said "The Amapedia appears stillborn, as Amazon users stick with what they're used to: individual, rather than collaborative, product reviews." [Chris Taylor, [http://money.cnn.com/2007/02/21/magazines/business2/walledgardens.biz2/?postversion=2007022113 "Why commercial Wikis don't work"] , Business 2.0, February 21, 2007] In early May 2007, the site had only 15 product reviews. [Andrew Wee, [http://www.ecommnewz.com/ecommnewz-4-20070502AmazonAmapediaHiddenPotentialorDeadDuck.html "Amazon Amapedia (Hidden Potential Or Dead Duck?)"] , ecommnewz.com, May 2, 2007, retrieved February 29, 2008]

As of February 2008, the logo for the site, on every page, includes the word "beta".

References

External links

* [http://amapedia.amazon.com Amapedia]