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"I don't think of my work as technological innovation, I think of it as being social innovation." (Jimmy Wales)

February 24, 2009. ODBMS Industry Watch Blog by Prof. Roberto Zicari (editor of ODBMS.ORG),today announced an exclusive interview with Jimmy Wales.

Marco Dettweiler and Roberto V. Zicari have interviewed Jimmy Wales on a broad number of issues, such as Wales` new project Wikia, the difference between Wikia Search and Google, censorship in Internet, the use of Wikipedia for academic purposes, and on innovation.

When asked what is Wikia, Mr. Wales explained: "We are building the rest of the Library. We are taking the Wiki model beyond just non profit educational and research community into thinks like humor, political activism, all kinds of different things."

Mr. Wales also explained the main difference of Wikia Search with respect to other search engines: "The primary difference what I am trying to do is to put the editorial control into the hands of the community. Every search engine has an editorial component to it, where you type in a search term, and they tell you the things that you should be looking for related to that search term, and all of that is controlled very secretively in most search engines. My view is let's try and open it up to public dialog and discussion and debate, so that the community can determine it."

Mr. Wales gave his opinion on the issue of censorship in Internet: "We have a policy that accurate information is a fundamental human right, and we won't compromise with censors."

"I don't think of my work as technological innovation, I think of it as being social innovation." concludes Wales.

The full text of the interview is available at: http://www.odbms.org/blog/

This interview is part of the exclusive series of interviews "On Innovation", published by Roberto V. Zicari in his ODBMS Industry Watch Blog, and available at:

http://www.odbms.org/blog/labels/On_Innovation.html

Jimmy Donal "Jimbo" Wales (born August 7, 1966), President of Wikia, Inc.; Board member and Chair Emeritus of the Wikimedia Foundation. His work developing Wikipedia, which has become the world's largest encyclopedia, prompted Time magazine to name him in its 2006 list of the world's most influential people.

About ODBMS Industry Watch Blog

In his ODBMS Industry Watch Blog (www.odbms.org/blog/), editor Prof. Roberto Zicari (ODBMS.ORG) muses about latest trends in the industry. The blog includes his exclusive series "On Innovation" (http://www.odbms.org/blog/labels/On_Innovation.html.)

The ODBMS Industry Watch Blog is part of ODBMS.ORG.