With their open, democratic spirit, Wiki-based websites and online peer-to-peer (P2P) enterprises have infiltrated all aspects of our lives, from education to politics to social networking to business - and have quickly uprooted age-old sources of knowledge, replacing them with untested hybrids. EVERYONE KNOWS EVERYTHING is a cutting-edge analysis of the people and technologies behind these changes, that will put this digital revolution in perspective by providing a smart, big-picture narrative of the history and future of human knowledge. At the center of the book is the fascinating story behind one of the internet's major successes: Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.com), an online encyclopedia in which anyone can write entries, that is currently the world's largest, most successful source of free information with almost two billion articles and sites in a wide variety of languages. Poe uses the rise of this site to illustrate how knowledge is evolving, and how information is not only available to the masses, but is now also determined by them. Wiki (Hawaiian for "quick") technology allows websites to outsource their services to the public, making it virtually free for them to provide information. But Poe asks the question, "is this good for the rest of us?" By explaining this new phenomenon in depth, Poe shows us where it's bound to lead; and looking back through history, shows how this shift in public knowledge compares to other similar shifts in our past. In the vein of THE WISDOM OF CROWDS and, THE LONG TAIL, this book will illuminate and contextualize a profound transformation taking place right before our eyes.
