Is Wikipedia Really Free?

Wikipedia has always been on the receiving end from analysts about their fundraising. Every once in awhile you will go onto their site and find an 'urgent appeal' from founder Jimmy Wales, or one of the staff members. They will ask for donations to help keep the content free, though the choice to give money is always in the hands of the user.

This has sparked a bit of debate on whether or not you can really define Wikipedia as being 'free'. But it all comes down to what that freedom really entails, and what the alternative would be if they were to stop asking for donations.

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Jimmyr Review: Technology and Programming News from the Whole Web

Jimmyr is your ultimate web-based source of geek news collected from all over the web broken into handy sections and tabs:

• News (Reddit Hot, World News, Gaming News, Us News)
• Pictures (Reddit Pics, DevianArt and Comics)
• Tech (Lifehacker, MakseUseOf and many more)
• Code (Reddit coding and more)
• Videos (Youtube Faves, Current, etc)
• Science, Trends and more!

Just bookmark it and scan daily during your coffee break!

NuffnangX: The Easier Way to Keep up with Blog Reading

NuffnangX is a free app that makes it easier to find and follow your favorite blogs using your smartphone.

From the developer:

The app, developed for easy reading on your smartphone, condenses and highlights the important facts and most interesting sentences in a given article based on your interests. NuffnangX also helps users discover new blogs, as well as categorize them

Flipboard + iPhone: a Pretty News Reader

Welcome to our daily addition of smartphone app inspiration. The application we woulв like to share with you today is free, fun and useful: it's an uPhone app that turns your news and social media updates from friends into a magazine which is a pleasure to read and scroll.

Today's app is Flipboard!

Will the Internet Go Silent?

With recent contention over SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect IP Act) the popular communal news site, Reddit, will be shutting down on January 18, 2012. Don’t worry, however, the website will be back to its normal functioning form come January 19, just like it always has been and hopefully always will be.

Now, shutting down a website for a day doesn’t seem like much, but this demonstration will lose Reddit thousands of dollars in what would have been their advertisement revenue and other profits. The owners of Reddit have decided to make this statement to protest both SOPA and PIPA – two bills currently in the U.S. Senate. If these bills are passed, the internet in the U.S. may approach major censorship – similar to what we can see in China. Reddit’s main goal in shutting down for the day is to help spread the word that SOPA and PIPA will have very negative effects on what is today’s online community.

Furthermore, they are hoping that other major internet companies (Google, Wikipedia, etc.) will join in on the January 18th blackout to spread the message to more non-tech-savvy Internet users. 

What do you think? Will Reddit be the only major website shutting down on January 18th, or will Google and Wikipedia also join in on the protest?

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