Anyone who's ever edited or created a Wikipedia entry can attest to the fact that it's not that self-explanatory. They're in luck--the nonprofit anyone-can-edit encyclopedia has received $890,000 from the Stanton Foundation in order to make it easier to use.
More specifically, the grant was given to the Wikimedia Foundation, the organization that encompasses Wikipedia. It'll fund the hire of three new software developers in the foundation's San Francisco office. Then, per a press release, the team will "commission research to identify the most common barriers to entry for first-time writers, and then work to systematically reduce or eliminate them...hiding complex elements of the user interface from people who don't need them."
Wikipedia will make all new code open-source.
"Wikipedia attracts writers who have a moderate-to-high level of technical understanding, but it excludes lots of smart, knowledgeable people who are less tech-centric," Wikimedia Foundation executive director Sue Gardner said in the release. "One of our key priorities is to attract those people and persuade them to help write and edit the encyclopedia. I am thrilled that the Stanton Foundation recognizes the importance of that work, and will be helping us with it."
Also a plus for a more user-friendly Wikipedia: Ideally, its millions of articles will have a broader depth of coverage. My colleague Declan McCullagh did an assessment last year of the skew toward geeky pop-culture content: the article for the mythological figure Vulcan, for example, is about one tenth as long as the article for the Vulcans of Star Trek fame.
The Stanton Foundation was founded by broadcast executive Frank Stanton, who served as president of CBS (which publishes CNET News) from 1946 to 1971.
Facebook is moving to the next step of its $10 million FBFund developer grant program, the company announced Friday in a blog post by employee Catherine Lee. The first round, announced early in August, is now closed, and 25 winning proposals will be announced on September 22; 5 final winners will be chosen out of all first-round winners who apply for the second round, and winners will wind up with grant money between $25,000 and $250,000.
"Our team has been busy reviewing each submission and we're amazed and excited by what we've seen," Lee wrote. "We're blown away by the remarkable amount of creativity, dedication, and hard work put into each application. The competition is intense!"
FBFund was first devised by Facebook last year, with cash provided by company investors Accel Partners and the Founders Fund, as a way to encourage developers to create high-quality applications for its platform. It hit an early snag, however, when Facebook abruptly voided existing applicants and asked that they re-apply while agreeing to a new set of fine print. FBFund's initial round gave away 10 developer grants, which were announced at the company's F8 conference in July. But those applications--which include wedding planner ConnectedWeddings, game creator HotBerry, and carpool organizer Zimride--were not selected in a contest process.
Several applicants for this year's round of FBFund have made their pitches available on the Web: e-commerce gifting service Real Gifts, contacts management system Socialfly, and greeting card creator GroupCard.
Developers, start your engines: submissions are now open for the developer application contest that Facebook created for its FBFund grant program. Winning developers, who submit business plans for their prototypical Facebook Platform applications, will receive between $25,000 and $250,000 in grant money. The company plans to give away $10 million total.
The contest was originally detailed at this year's F8 conference, in which the 10 original FBFund selectees were also unveiled.
Monday saw the kickoff of the competition's Round 1, in which 25 winning proposals announced on September 22 will each be awarded $25,000. The winners of that round will have the option to apply for Round 2, in which five final winners will receive $250,000 to fund the development of their Facebook applications. Winners will also have access to "mentorship" from Facebook as well as a boost in publicity and marketing resources.
Facebook is drawing developer attention to its platform at a crucial time: first, it's expanded its API to the Facebook Connect initiative; and second, it's now competing for geek attention not only with rival social-networking platforms but also with Apple's iPhone, the hot platform du jour.
Additionally, FBFund has heretofore flown under the radar, unusual for something that has come out of a publicity magnet like Facebook--and some of the moderate press it's gotten has been fairly negative. Throwing a contest is probably a decent way to drum up some attention.
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