Wikipedia is a multilingual, collaboratively operated online encyclopedia that can be edited by anyone and that aims to provide free encyclopedic information to its readers.

This site was initially created as a complement to the online encyclopedia, Nupedia but after a laborious year with just twelve articles the creator of the site Jimmy Wales, with the assistance of his Nupedia employee, Larry Sanger decided to use the wiki technology in converting and recreating Nupedia into what is the now famous website, Wikipedia.

Since the wiki technology was adapted for the site there exist a steady flow of articles being contributed to the site. With this technology it means that anyone and everyone can contribute and collaboratively give information in an encyclopedia article on any subject known and available on the site. Anyone can choose to edit the information posted on its articles and because of this wide open nature there are some people who would intentionally add nonsense instead of putting up facts and commit other acts of vandalism on the site that’s why administrators are putting up precautions against this type to protect the project.

Originally the project started out in English on January 15, 2001 with just little articles but after introducing the wiki method on the site it has now covered a wide range of subjects and in approximately 250 different languages with the English Wikipedia containing at about 2.7 million articles as of January 27, 2009.

Wikipedia has become very strong among the search engines due to the very high page rank and that they deal with pure information that is not intended for internet marketing purposes.  They have been a little fearful of  intense marketing and online advertising and have built a very well respected site for useful information.  If you haven’t had a chance to browse it we recommend you spending some time.  It is also a great place to look up obscure internet marketing terms like Web 2.0, and mashables and see the literal definitions to these terms.

Wikipedia wouldn’t practically be what it is now today not for it’s thousands of volunteer scholars, students, teachers, hobbyists and knowledgeable people from around the world, who are usually termed as Wikipedians. This Wikipedians are the ones who generally contribute ideas and articles to site and are basically committed to the mission of the project which is to provide a free online encyclopedia to everyone arount the world. They are hardworking, knowledgeable and also there are self-titled people who spend many hours researching, writing and editing the articles. With this growing numbers of participants each day Wikipedia is at the moment ranked as the 6th most visited website around the world.

This site has become one of the most well known sites, who uses collaborative gathering of information to revolutionize and unite web users around the world. This site can be considered as an active online community together in the cause of educating people and of course to gather all the world’s pertinent facts and document it all in one site. Wikipedia is being operated by it’s parent company Wikimedia, a non-profit charitable organization, who also operates several wiki projects on the web.

In the midst of the development of mobile-phone technology, one feature that affected tech-savvy and busy individuals was the short message service (SMS).  More commonly known as text messaging, it has had an impact on business and the marketing of businesses. One website that adapted the idea of SMS to businesses is Twitter.

Twitter is a social networking and micro-blogging service that connects friends and individuals simply and easily through Tweets.  Tweets in Twitter lingo is a micro-blog that allows users to send and read messages.  On Twitter you can post a message of up to 140 characters in length.

While Tweets are displayed in the user’s profile and delivered to others who have signed up to receive them, senders can actually restrict delivery of updates to a circle of friends. And also users, who are receiving updates, have the option to receive, view and post their updates via SMS, RSS feeds or through some applications specifically made for Tweets like Tweetie, Twinkle, Facebook and Feedalizr.

Twitter was founded by Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone and Evan Williams. It began as a research and development project inside Odeo, a podcasting company in San Francisco. It was launched in July 2006.  Twitter eventually gained popularity. In March 2007 it won the South by Southwest Web Award in the blog category.

In Twitter, users can create their own profile page that will display their latest text updates. Users can become friends with one another or simply be a follower.  Once you become a follower, you can start receiving and reading updates or Tweets from the one whose profile you are following. Although Twitter itself is a free service, you may have to pay text messaging charges to your phone carrier.

While Twitter is rapidly gaining popularity, it is also experiencing traffic overload. Twitter users are complaining that too many nonsense tweets are being posted.  Needless to say, there are complaints about high cell phone bills. Privacy and security issues prompted Twitter to introduce an optional PIN that its user can specify for SMS-originating messages. Despite these concerns, Twitter is still one of the leading names in social-networking.

Twitter is one of those rare innovations that may occur in a market place that changes the rules of engagement.  Before Twitter, there were blogs like Wordpress and Blogger and social media like Facebook and Myspace.  Now these distinctions are fuzzy.  I find it fascinating that I can’t listen to the radio or watch the news without hearing about Twitter and someone’s Tweet!

In addition to being a free service that allows one to build a following of loyal viewers, Tweeter has joint ventures with some other internet companies, such as socialoomph.com, futuretweet.com, buzzom.com, tweetcounter.com and many more. By sharing their programming with these companies, Tweeter has allowed brilliant innovation to improve on an already brilliant business model.

There is an art form to Twitter and a number of sites and tools that are critical to getting the most out of Twitter.  These sites and tools can save you time, money and energy.   I highly encourage you to go to http://Celnicker.com and get the free video series on Twitter.