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Every day，millions of people find answers on Wikipedia to questions both trivial and serious.Jack Herrick found his business model there.

In 2004，Mr Herrick acquired the how-to guide eHow.com，which featured articles written by paid freelance writers.Although the business made a profit，he realized that the revenue brought in by selling advertising would not support the extensive site he had in mind.“If the page were about how to get a mortgage，it would work，”he said.“But the idea was to be the how-to guide to everything.”

So in January 2005 he started wikiHow，a how-to guide built on the same open-source software as Wikipedia，which lets anyone write and edit entries in a collaborative system.To his surprise he found that many of the entries generated by Internet users—free—were more informative than those written by freelancers.

“Wikipedia proved you could get there with another method，”Mr Herrick said.Several months ago he sold eHow to focus on the new site，which now has 10，000 entries in English，Spanish and German.

Mr Herrick is hardly the only entrepreneur inspired by the efficiency and low cost of what has beCome known as the wiki model.Although Wikipedia is operated by a nonprofit foundation，ideas for advertisingbased wiki sites are beginning to take their place alongside blogs and social networking sites as a staple of Silicon Valley business plans.

In addition to Wikia，a site devoted to topics judged too esoteric for the online encyclopedia，there is ShopWiki，for product reviews，and Wikitravel，for tourism advice.Several start-ups allow users to operate their own wiki sites.

“Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and this is about the other 999，000 books in the library，”said Ben Elowitz，chief executive of Wetpaint，a startyour-own wiki site.

Others wonder how big that library can get.All of the companies making consumer-oriented wikis are privately held and do not release revenue figures.But so far not one of them has Come close to the popularity of Wikipedia，according to Nielsen/NetRatings.WikiHow had 1.1 million visitors in July，Wikia had just over 270，000，and several other wiki sites had too small an audience to be measured by the Nielsen/ NetRatings methodology.

Andrew Frank，a research director at the Gartner Group，a technology consulting firm，said that all of this interest in wikis might rest on some na6ve assumptions.

“The assertion that these sites are cheap to run is questionable，”he said.For example，to sell a substantial amount of advertising，wiki sites might have to filter for objectionable content.And he says he believes that ads on wikis could be worth less per impression than those on sites that aim at a more specific audience.

“I think there's going to be a lot of wikis，”Mr Herrick said.“But I'm not sure how many of them will make money.”

Others are more optimistic.Last month John Gotts，an entrepreneur known for buying the rights to domain names，agreed to buy the site Wiki.com for$2.86 million.

“I would never have paid this much for any other domain，”Mr Gotts said.“I can't think of one that would be worth more.”He pointed out that the site Wiki.com drew traffic before he bought it，even though it had little content.

The wiki concept was invented in 1994 by Ward Cunningham，a computer scientist who created a program called WikiWikiWeb as a way to share programming techniques.He named his creation after the Hawaiian word for fast.

“The subject I had in mind was the knowledge necessary to write good computer code，”Mr Cunningham said，“but I realized it would have broader implications.It's a medium that allows people to collaborate more easily than they could in systems that are modeled after the precomputer world，like e-mail.”

Over the last few years，wikis have gained traction as tools in the business world，where companies run them on internal networks to foster collaboration on complex projects.The Gartner Group has predicted that half of all companies will use them internally in some fashion by 2009.There has also been at least one failed experiment with wikis in journalism:The Los Angeles Times tried online“wikitorials”but quickly abandoned the idea.

Even Jimmy Wales，who founded Wikipedia，is looking for ways to broaden—and profit from—the wiki concept.With financing from technology luminaries like Marc Andreessen and Mitchell Kapor，he and Angela Beesley started Wikia，which includes 1，500 separate wikis，from the Star Wars—focused Wookieepedia to user-generated pages on depression.Although Wikia is a for-profit company，it was founded with some of the communitarian idealism of Wikipedia，and its business plan calls for it to donate money to that foundation.

“It's never going to be a billion-dollar-revenue business，”said Gil Penchina，the company's chief executive.He said that the site currently made less than a dollar a page per month，although the site's growing number of pages could make that significant.

“It feels to me like Craigslist，”he said.“It's a small business，but it's a good business and it makes a lot of people happy.”

If wikis beCome a big business，some of that idealism may fade—and consumers may begin to resent contributing to the sites free.So far，though，the sites are growing fast，thanks to dedicated volunteers.

Sondra Crane，a 75-year-old retiree who lives in Altamonte Springs，Fla.，has written scores of entries for wikiHow on subjects both practical(how to make pot roast)and profound(how to get old without feeling old).“I've been writing all my life and I always wanted to have my name known，”she said.“I'd like to get paid—I put a lot of hours in.But it's nice to know that people are being helped.”

Wikia and wikiHow operate much like Wikipedia:they let all users contribute and stipulate that any content they generate may be used freely，much as open-source software is.Other start-ups，including Wiki.com，are departing from the traditional collaborative spirit of the wiki model，in that they will let users decide who has permission to contribute to the wikis they start.

Mr Gotts，who has been paying for Wiki.com in$10，000 installments with a final payment of about$2.8 million due within six months，said that he intended to share revenue with those who used his site to start wikis.“The main way we're going to make money，”he said，“is to lead the trend for users to make money.”

He said that he would let users register Wiki.com subdomains free on topics of their own choosing—he suggested that might be anything from soccer.wiki.com to smokedsalmon.wiki.com—in the hope they would attract advertising or e-commerce.

But Ramit Sethi，co-founder of PBwiki，another make-your-own wiki site，said that it was still too early to determine what model would turn wikis into money-makers.

“Nobody has found the de facto business model for wikis，”said“It's kind of the Wild West.”

1.“If the page were about how to get a mortgage，it would work.”Discuss the meaning of this sentence.

2.What issues might occur if Wikis grow into a big business?

3.From operation perspective，how do Wikia and wikiHow differ from Wiki.com?

4.What is the article's overall assessment of the Wiki model?

5.“It's kind of the Wild West.”Explain and discuss the meaning of this sentence.

How-to guide:A how-to or a how to is an informal，often short，description of how to accomplish some specific task.A how-to is usually meant to help non-experts，may leave out details that are only important to experts，and may also be greatly simplified from an overall discussion of the topic.See procedural knowledge for a discussion of what sort of knowledge is imparted，and how far it can be imparted，in how-tos.

C.aigslist:A website of classified ads and community notices that serves an urban area.It was started in 1995 in San Francisco by Craig Newmark and since spread to hundreds of cities in more than 50 countries.Listings are free，but job postings in major cities are paid.For more information，visit www.craigslist.org.

Open source:开放源码通过支持源代码的独立同业互查和快速发展演变提高了软件的可靠性和质量。要通过OSI(开放系统互联)认证，软件必须在获得许可证的情况下发布，该许可证可保证免费读取、重新发布、修改和使用该软件的权利。　Open source is an approach to design，development，and distribution offering practical accessibility to a product's source(goods and knowledge).Some consider open source as one of various possible design approaches，while others consider it a critical strategic element of their operations.Before open source beCome widely adopted，developers and producers used a variety of phrases to describe the concept；the term open source gained popularity with the rise of the Internet，which provided access to diverse production models，communication paths，and interactive communities.

Software development costs in organizations have been touted as being approximately 15％of total costs.This indicates that the value of one over another development methodology is more of a marketing decision(which customers and pricing models)as much as it is about the design of software.

The open source model of operation and decision making allows concurrent input of different agendas，approaches and priorities，and differs from the more closed，centralized models of development.The principles and practices are commonly applied to the peer production development of source code for software that is made available for public collaboration.The result of this peer-based collaboration is usually released as opensource software，however open source methods are increasingly being applied in other fields of endeavor，such as Biotechnology.

Social networking site:A website that provides a virtual community for people interested in a particular subject or just to“hang out”together.Members create their own online“profile”with biographical data，pictures，likes，dislikes and any other information they choose to post.They communicate with each other by voice，chat，instant message，videoconference and blogs，and the service typically provides a way for members to contact friends of other members.

Sites may also serve as a vehicle for meeting in person.The“social networking site”is the 21st century“virtual community，”a group of people who use the Internet to communicate with each other about anything and everything.One can find dating sites，friendship sites，sites with a business purpose and hybrids that offer a combination of these.Globally，hundreds of millions of people have joined one or more social networking sites.

Introduced in 2002，Friendster(www.friendster.com)was the first social site，followed by MySpace(www.myspace.com)a year later.Started by two friends，MySpace beCome extremely popular，and its parent company，Intermix，was acquired by News Corporation for$580 million two years after MySpace was launched.

Facebook(www.facebook.com)Come out in 2004 initially targeting college students，but later welcoming everyone.Following Facebook were TagWorld(www.tagworld.com)and Tagged(www.tagged.com).TagWorld introduced tools for creating more personalized Web pages，and Tagged introduced the concept of building tag teams for teens with like interests.

Social networking sites compete for attention much like the first Web portals when the Internet exploded onto the scene in the mid-1990s.

Wikipedia:Wikipedia，a combination of the word wiki(Wiki-wiki is the Hawaiian word for quick)and encyclopedia，is an on-line copyleft encyclopedia that is constantly evolving and can be edited by anyone.Hosted and supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation，this open source resource is collaboratively created and maintained by thousands of users worldwide.Any article contributed to Wikipedia beComes free content that may be used，edited，copied and redistributed by users.All materials contributed to Wikipedia must be verifiable by other users.

Founded by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger，Wikipedia began as an English language project but quickly beCome a multilingual enterprise.Committed to maintaining neutrality，Wikipedia encourages contributors to fairly present all views on an issue，and welComes participation of users from across the globe in order to neutralize the possibility of builtin biases derived from the demographic makeup of the contributors.Entries that are likely to contain controversial content are flagged as such，and it is occasionally necessary to freeze the option of editing certain topics when their neutrality is being compromised.

On September 20，2004，Wikipedia reached the milestone of including one million articles in 105 different languages.At that time，nearly 2，500 articles were being added each day，with some 25，000 articles being updated daily.

Wikipedia has a number of sister projects，which include:Wiktionary(a free dictionary)，Wikibooks(free textbooks)，Wikiquote(a free encyclopedia of quotations)and Wikisource(a repository of source texts that are in the public domain).

Wikis:It is a website that uses wiki software，allowing the easy creation and editing of any number of interlinked(often databased)Web pages，using a simplified markup language.Wikis are often used to create collaborativewebsitesandtopowercommunitywebsites.The collaborative encyclopedia Wikipedia is one of the best-known wikis.Wikis are used in business to provide intranet and knowledge management systems.Ward Cunningham，the developer of the first wiki software，WikiWikiWeb，originally described it as“the simplest online database that could possibly work.”维基的概念始于1995年，创建者最初的意图是建立一个知识库工具，其目的是方便社群的交流，也因此提出了wiki这一概念。从1996年至2000年间，这个知识库得到不断的发展，维基的概念也得到丰富和传播，网上也相继出现了许多类似的网站和软件系统，其中最有名的就是维基百科(Wikipedia)。在维基页面上，每个人都可浏览、创建、更改文本，系统可以对不同版本内容进行有效控制管理，所有的修改记录都会保存下来，不但可事后查验，也能追踪、回复至本来面目。同一维基网站的写作者自然构成了一个社群，维基系统为这个社群提供简单的交流工具。

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/23/ AR2007022301596.html

英文新闻标题中的标点符号。标点符号在标题中常有特定的作用。如前所述，标题中的逗号通常用以代替连接词“and”。分号则用以分隔独立的分句，表示标题包含两件事情，如“Industrial Dreams Fades；Third World Revives Farms”。标题中的冒号往往用以表示消息来源及内容；有时表示其后的内容是前面的说明和补充，如“WHO:H1Ni Virus Mutated Slightly in Family”。标题中使用问号显而易见表示质疑，而感叹号则表示随后的报道内容会令人诧异或感慨，如“Containment:New North Korea Policy?”。标题中引号则引用或表示特殊含义。

1.Many people seek answers on Wikipedia to a variety of questions.

2.eHow.com was designed to be the how-to guide to everything about mortgage.

3.Mr Herrick's acquired site later merged with wikiHow.com.

4.More and more entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley start to adopt the Wiki model.

5.Wikipedia is built on open source so that anyone can contribute to entries in a collaborative system.

1.According to the article，which of following is true aboutWikipedia?

A.It is run by a nonprofit foundation.

B.It provides information as much as what 999，000 books can provide.

C.It was founded by Jimmy Wales following the wiki concept of Ward Cunningham.

2.All of the following are true except________.

A.domain name is closely related to a website such as Wiki.com

B.Nielsen/NetRatings ranks the amount of objectionable content of a certain website

C.shopWiki is a site on product reviews

D.Gartner Group is a consultancy firm

3.One experiment with the wiki model in journa lism was________.

4.From the context，we may determine that Craigslist________.

A.may be a list of businesses created by Craig

B.may generate huge sums of revenue

C.makes few people happy

5.A consultant from Gartner Group________.

A.questions the idea that wiki sites are cheap to run

B.doubts that all of those wiki sites will make money

C.ads on wikis could be worth more if those on sites targeting a more specific audience