When Wikipedia was started as an encyclopedia six years ago there were 3 articles in it. Wikipedia has emerged as internets biggest phenomena in recent times changing the way people get information on a subject. Today Wikipedia contains more than 8 million articles in more than 250 languages on subjects ranging from Michael Jackson to quantum physics. On the other hand Britannica’s encyclopedia which is 238 years old contains just 500,000 topics in its 32 volumes. In the USA Britannica costs $1,400; shipping excluded. Wikipedia is free.

Now Jimmy Wales of Wikipedia fame intends to launch Search Wikia which will be a search engine that will harness the knowledge of people all over the world. Wikia’s search programmes will be available for any one to edit with knowledge of programming. Users will be able to rank websites helping to arrive at the best combination of human and computer ranking for searches. While Google, Yahoo and others guard the secret algorithms of their search engines like sacred texts Search Wikia will be open and there will be nothing secretive about it.

Wales believes that within 3 years time Search Wikia will rival the top search engines of today. He thinks that eventually his human vs machine model will beat Google and other search engines. According to him a search engines results are “editorial judgments”. And people he says are better at refining those judgments. Given Jimmy Wales’s vision and success with Wikipedia this may be something to watch.

Personally I doubt if Search Wikia will come anywhere close to Google search. Remember that another “human powered search engine” Mahalo.com founded by Jason Calacanis (still in beta) has never really taken off. Google has made rapid strides in search and is generally a reliable means of looking for information on the internet.

What do you think? Can the wisdom of the common man beat the power of the pure machine search of Google?

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