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New Web Sites Seeking Profit in Wiki Model

September 4, 2006 /

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Bear Paw Development Corporation is a private non-profit organization created for the purpose of administering programs to help improve regional economic conditions in Hill, Blaine, Liberty, Chouteau and Phillips Counties and the Fort Belknap and Rocky Boy's Indian Reservations.

Jack Herrick started wikiHow, a how-to Web site that allows anyone to write and edit entries, in January 2005.

A page from the wikiHow site, which hopes to turn a profit based on advertising and now has 10,000 entries in English, Spanish and German.

In 2004, Mr. Herrick acquired the how-to guide eHow.com, which featured articles written by paid freelance writers. Although the business made a profit, he realized that the revenue brought in by selling advertising would not support the extensive site he had in mind. “If the page were about how to get a mortgage, it would work,” he said. “But the idea was to be the how-to guide to everything.”

So in January 2005 he started wikiHow, a how-to guide built on the same open-source software as Wikipedia, which lets anyone write and edit entries in a collaborative system. To his surprise he found that many of the entries generated by Internet users — free — were more informative than those written by freelancers.

By ROBERT LEVINE

Full Story: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/04/technology/04wiki.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1157382207-WbuQ3LPb/d4EzZ6nKtdzxg