Publics, Collaboration and Wikis

Wikipedia:  Wikipedia articles come out at or near the top of Google searches for many organisations.  There is considerable debate about whether or not public relations practitioners should ever edit pages about their clients.  There are links to some discussions of this in the stirpr delicious.com  bookmarks.

 Fans

Wookipedia:  Fan created Star Wars encyclopedia that anyone can edit.  Projects like this have the potential to cause conflict if organisations try and enforce their intellectual property rights on fans.   Some organisation, such as Lucasfilm, have a tolerant attitude towards non-profit making and non-salacious fan projects.   Others take a harder line on such infringements.  For example 20th Century Fox enforced its copyrights on an Aliens themed version of a computer game that was being cooperatively created by fans.

Activists often use wikis to help them organise.  Examples here include

SourceWatch:  "The Center for Media and Democracy publishes SourceWatch, this collaborative resource for citizens and journalists looking for documented information about the corporations, industries, and people trying to influence public policy and public opinion. We believe in telling the truth about the most powerful interests in society—not just relating their self-serving press releases or letting real facts be bleached away by spin. With the help of volunteer editors, SourceWatch focuses on the for-profit corporations, non-profit corporate front groups, PR teams, and so-called "experts" trying to influence public opinion on behalf of global corporations and the government agencies they have captured."

Appropoedia is a wiki aimed at activists interested in “sustainability, appropriate technology and poverty reduction”.
 
The Activist Toolkit:   a wiki site designed to help activists campaign more effectively.

Corporate use of Wikis:  many organisations use wikis as tools for managing information and for internal communications, others have wikis designed for use by anyone.

Intuit, producers of accountancy and tax software, created TaxAlmanac, a wiki designed for tax and accounting professionals, and uses it as a relationship building tool, “a Community of Customers”.