Wikipedia, the free web-based encyclopedia used worldwide, will be adding video to their online repository in a matter of months. When the new system launches, you’ll find a new button labeled “Add Media” on Wikipedia articles. Upon clicking this, you’ll be prompted to search through three online repositories for relevant videos which can be added to the article. You can even select particular portions of the video instead of embedding the entire clip.
According to news breaking at Technology Review, this video upgrade will be made available within two to three months. At launch time, Wikipedia will provide access to the following online video repositories: the Internet Archive, which contains 200,000 videos, Wikimedia Commons, a resource maintained by the Wikimedia Foundation, creators of Wikipedia, and Metavid, a source for Congressional hearings and speeches.
One of the requirements for any video added to the site is that it be based on open-source formats. With the heavy exposure that the Wikipedia web site receives – often the number one search ranking for any subject and the seventh most popular web site in the world – the organization hopes to put pressure on other content holders to release more of their videos into the public domain.
Neither adding a video to the site nor clipping a section of video will require users to have any sort of video-editing software on their computer – all the tools will be provided online. In the future, Wikipedia plans to add more features to the system so as to allow users to edit, add to, and reorganize the clips embedded in the articles, just as users are able to edit text on the site today.
To help with the video effort, Wikipedia has partnered with Kaltura, an open source video solution provider, who is helping to develop the necessary tools for importing the video content. The partnership was originally announced back in January of 2008.
