(via boingboing)

Andy Carvin, blogging from Wikimania, posts about Jimmy Wales’ announcements of Wikimedia’s future plans. One thing I love about Jimbo, he’s never afraid to think big.

(Andy Carvin’s full notes on Jimmy Wales’ talk at Wikimania.)

A few minutes ago here at the Wikimania conference, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales announced that the One Laptop Per Child Project is including Wikipedia as one of the first elements in their content repository. (ac: though they’ve been talking about this for at least a year.)

He also announced a new project called Wikiversity. It will serve as an online center for the creation and use of free learning materials and activities. It will create and host a range of free content materials, multilingual learning materials, for all ages in all languages. It’ll host scholarly projects and communities to support these materials, and foster research based in part on existing resources in Wikiversity and other wikimedia projects. Launching in three languages, in a six-month beta, within a month.

Wikimedia Foundation will also now have an advisory board to help improve partnerships, public relations, financing, etc. Additionally, Wikia and SocialText is launching Wikiwyg. It will make it easier for more people to get involved in wiki editing. The technological barrier to entry keeps out really smart people who are uncomfortable with the Wikipedia interface. “Wikiwyg, in some shape or form, will be the future of the Internet,” because it will allow non-techies to become Wikipedians easily.