The cluelessness of Ananzi continues…

So Ananzi launched a wiki! w00t! They are finally getting “with-it“! Or NOT! I read it first at The new new media. Hilton asked the question, “I’ll say it again … a wiki?“.

The story is that they basically advertise their startpage.co.za service as a wiki. (If you don’t want to visit startpage.co.za, it is much the same as Google’s personalised home page)

At first I thought its ridiculous that they can call this a wiki! A wiki is like Wikipedia!!
According to Wikipedia the definition of a wiki is:

“A wiki (IPA: [ˈwɪ.kiː] or [ˈwiː.kiː]^[1]) is a website that allows visitors to add, remove, edit and change content, typically without the need for registration. It also allows for linking among any number of pages. This ease of interaction and operation makes a wiki an effective tool for mass collaborative authoring”

And here is where Ananzi got it ALL wrong. This one sentence that (I think) they thought qualified their startpage.co.za service as a “wiki”: It also allows for linking among any number of pages. (I’m being sarcastic, though… I have not got the faintest clue why they would call startpage.co.za a wiki! )

Is it a “wiki” though? No. If you read the rest of the Wikipedia definition of a wiki, you’ll see that what Ananzi offer as a wiki is no wiki at all!

Now, on a ranting (personal) note, this pisses me off EXTREMELY! Ananzi’s visitors are exactly the type of visitors that needs some educating. To tell them that THIS is a wiki is misleading and wrong! I seriously cannot understand why big okes like Braby’s do not first make sure of the facts before they start blabbering about something they clearly have no idea what it is! Once again, they have resources like Cerebra, so why the hell do they not use them?! Is it a simple case of “How can I consult a technology company? I AM a technology company!”? I will not understand this…

I would once again love to hear from Ananzi and how they got to naming their startpage.co.za a “wiki”, but that, I guess, would be wishful thinking as in the case of the Search Engine Shootout.

technorati tags:ananzi, wiki, wikipedia

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5 Comments to "The cluelessness of Ananzi continues…"

• Gino Cosme said: On 05/02/2007 at 12:30 pm

  I have to agree with you here. If anything, startpage is a “social portal”, albeit badly designed and thought through.

• Ian said: On 05/02/2007 at 3:17 pm

  The link to startpage.co.za isn’t working either - you have to add the accursed www in front

• Stii said: On 05/03/2007 at 11:16 am

  Heh, thanks for telling Ian. It should have worked though! Who uses only http://www. these days still? Bunch of LASses.

• John Gore said: On 05/03/2007 at 9:50 pm

  Silly fools these Ananzi blokes. Same goes for Brabys.. wait.. aren’t they the same company now? (can’t remember, don’t follow rubish).

  BTW: Startpage.co.za thingie has been around for ages (months) now, but I have to agree that its not a wiki as such. Whatever it is, its a poor implementation of Google Personalized Home page (as you pointed out).

  PS: On the http://www. side of things, that would be a seperate DNS entry that needs to be made. One of http://www.startpage.co.za and one for just startpage.co.za . Sadly many guys out there don’t know that, and don’t set it up correctly. (hope some admins out there get to read this.. and apply)

• danette said: On 05/04/2007 at 3:43 pm

  Hey I was just on startpage yesterday. Unfortunately I’m one of those prejudiced people who leave a website I they don’t like the design - which is just what I did. You’re saying its worth a try though? I might give it another shot

Spit it out!

Filed in: Social Web, Web 2.0 by: Stii