Comments on: Companies editing Wikipedia: busted by WikiScanner

By: Mike Keliher

Mike Keliher — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 03:05:22 +0000

I’d be curious to learn more about how companies use Wikipedia as part of a strategy, presumably for some sort of marketing or PR work. I think it’s clear that “corporate editing” of Wikipedia can be risky. Are companies often actively engaged in Wikipedia’s “talk pages,” hoping to affect the content on relevant pages?

By: Douglas Karr

Douglas Karr — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 02:58:54 +0000

I know many companies that utilize Wikipedia as a part of their strategy. I think it's a great idea! What would make sense is keeping an eye on these edits to ensure everyone else will benefit from the edit. If companies want to be blatant, they can simply turn to the Million Dollar Wiki and own their own page. Cheers! Doug

By: Mike

Mike — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 19:37:54 +0000

There’s plenty of work for marketers to do, even if this idea is taken to the extreme. Somebody, after all, still has to figure out how to let people know about the companies and products that are out there to be branded by the people, for the people.

By: Jany

Jany — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 19:28:32 +0000

Hopefully that means that in the future, marketers and advertisers can just sit back, while we allow customers to brand companies. Artists will compete to design advertisements, as Mountain Dew, Diesel, among others have already done. And customers will contribute to information networks such as Wikipedia to define the brand.

Although my question is does the WikiScanner know what’s “compromising”? I.e. someone from Pepsi Co. adding historical facts vs. a PR or marketing person adding brand boosting adjectives…