Qwiki - Narrating the World's Knowledge One Piece at a Time

In 1994 ward cunningham came up with a unique idea for a website with pages that can be edited via the browser, with a version history for each page. he gave the name WikiWikiWeb to both the wiki, which ran on his company's website at c2.com, and the wiki software that powered it .

He chose WikiWikiWeb as the name based on his memories of the Wiki Wiki Shuttle at Honolulu International Airport, and because wiki is the Hawaiian word for quick. The website met with success, and began to spawn alternative wiki applications and websites over the next five years. In the meantime, the first wiki, now known as WardsWiki, evolved as features were added to the software and as the growing body of users developed a unique wiki culture. By 2000, WardsWiki had developed a great deal of content outside of its original stated purpose, which led to the spinoff of content into sister sites, most notably MeatballWiki.

In January 2001 Wikipedia was launched, and quickly became the most popular wiki, which it remains to this day. Its meteoric rise in popularity (it entered the top ten most popular sites in 2007) played a large part in introducing wikis to the general public. There now exist at least tens of thousands of wiki websites.

Now there is a new kid on the block that goes by the name of Qwiki.

Qwiki is the world’s first “information experience”, powered by a technology that transforms static information into interactive stories. these stories are narrated by a voice which sometimes can give some unintentionally humorous pronunciations of every day words but considering its only in alpha testing it is actually pretty decent and because you don't necessarily have to read the information on the topic you can get through a lot of information and facts in a small amount of time!

It is still at the early stages so it doesn't cover every topic and it never will but currently is cover over 2 million different topics including a wide variety of people, places and things which for a relatively new website is pretty darn impressive!

Unlike most wikis i have used Qwiki has taken a totally different stance when it comes to design and has given the site a modern sleek design instead of the drab grey design of the likes of Wikipedia. lets take a quick look at qwiki and some of its features:

From the very beginning the design is sleek and intuitive for example if you search for “new Zealand” it automatically starts searching for related results in real time!

Once you select a qwiki, your “information experience” will automatically begin.

Your search terms are then

transformed into a visual presentation accompanied by real-time audio narration and other data including:

• Maps
• Videos
• Images
• Animation

From what i can see the information you are actually presented with seems to be collated from various sources and put together instead of being submitted by users. this makes a lot of sense since the information is already sitting there on the web waiting to be discovered! every Qwiki is both immersive and interactive. You can click on objects within the Qwiki for further interactivity and a more detailed view of the object.

Every Qwiki has “related” Qwikis, viewable by browsing the bar below the player, or clicking any image, video, or animation that has a “Q” in the top right corner.

You can also click on images in order to activate “detail view”. Detail view allows you to see the source of the image and to explore related Qwikis.

And the interactive experience never stops once the narration ends you can:

•  Replay and share the Qwiki
• Watch related Qwikis
•  Explore the sourced pages on Wikipedia, Google, Flickr, and YouTube for your Qwiki

in the future you’ll be able to watch Qwikis on your Facebook friends, local restaurants – and eventually any topic in the world. In fact, any publisher or person will soon be able to create qwikis.

If you would like to Alpha test qwiki leave a comment below or send me an @reply to @kylemcc with your email and I will invite you or alternatively you can register your intrest at qwiki.com