It’s that time of year. Everybody’s putting out their year-end round-ups. Sometimes they come in the form of lists. Sometimes they’re videos. Sometimes both.
The Wikimedia Foundation is getting in on the fun this year with its first-ever annual video looking back at the year in Wikipedia edits. The Foundation’s Katherine Maher writes:
More than anything, it celebrates those who come to Wikipedia to learn and understand the complexity of our world, and those who edit and contribute information so that others might do the same.
In watching the video, you embark on a journey through the world and Wikipedia, revisiting what you read and edited this year. From the FIFA World Cup to the Indian general elections, and the Ice Bucket Challenge to Ebola in West Africa, we follow threads of discovery through Wikipedia’s vast constellation of knowledge, finding opportunities to contribute along the way. We venture from Sochi to outer space in less than three minutes.
It has a pretty Googley feel to it, doesn’t it? Besides the fact that many of the subjects in it are reflective of Google’s search trends for the year, the way the actual video is edited reminds me of many of the Google videos I’ve seen in the past. Still, I think it will make a nice addition to the annual round-up in years to come.
Speaking of Google meets Wikimedia, Google announced this week that it’s shutting down its community-driven structured data offering Freebase, and will now support Wikimedia’s Wikidata project.
Image via Wikipedia