Happy birthday Wikipedia, EC parental controls, MySpace slims down

WikipediaWikipedia, once a byword for inaccuracy and half truth, has reached its first decade online, in the process becoming the world’s fifth most popular website with more than 400 regular readers.

Recent years have even seen its accuracy, if not readability, praised in several studies and founder Jimmy Wales’ recent claim that it’s a “temple of the mind” is looking increasingly hard to dispute.

The challenge it faces as it pursues further growth is embracing other languages now that versions in English (3.4 million articles), German (1.18m articles) and French (1.06m articles) are so well established. Last year’s decision to open the first Wikipedia office outside the US should be a major step towards this.

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The internet is enough to strike fear deep into the heart of any parent – and that’s before your child starts commandeering Spotify or asking how to buy Club Penguin credits.

But there are far worse things online and a new report from the European Commission finds roughly a quarter of parents block or filter websites (28%) and/or track the sites their children visit (24%).

A separate study by the Commission found that while 84% of the parental control software it tested enabled parents to block access to certain websites, they were less efficient at filtering web 2.0 content from sources like social networking sites or blogs.

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Clearly deciding MySpace employees deserved one last indignity after having their fate trailed in the press for months on end, Mike Jones sent them a photocopied letter asking them to stay “stay connected” with the ailing social network.

The MySpace chief executive’s wrote to the 500 staff laid off this week saying their redundancies would provide the company with “a clear path for sustained growth and profitability”.

This path includes passing responsibility for UK advertising and sponsorship sales to Fox Networks, its sister company since 2005 when Rupert Murdoch bought MySpace for $580m (its user base subsequently peaking at 100 million the following year).

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  1. Twitter hissy fit, new Google algorithm, Wikipedia growth plans « Dominic Tyer's blog

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