Wikipedia's travel site's official launch coming soon; what to expect and not expect
Skift Take
There is no question about it: guidebook publishers should fear Wikivoyage, but travelers should rejoice. Though give it some time to build up into a useful resource.
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[UPDATE: The Wikimedia Foundation is tentatively slated to launch Wikivoyage next week, on January 15, Skift has learned.]
Wikipedia's next big push is a travel wiki, and the official launch of Wikivoyage is coming soon, according to Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales.
Wales was on Colbert Show last night talking about next big priorities for the organization, and he mentioned that Wikipedia's travel effort, called Wikivoyage, is soon launching officially after being developed as a project for the last 5-6 months. The site has been live since late September but still as a project-in-development, not a fully-baked site.
From the show: "We have a travel site that's opening up soon, we will see how it goes...called Wikivoyage." Asked by Colbert if they would consider having a business model for the travel site, he flatly said, as he always has: "No." Meaning no to any commercial considerations, or advertising, which is the same policy for the main Wikipedia site as well. The clip below:
