Wikimedia Foundation’s next project is a travel site. Yes, a free web-based site filled with guides and travel destinations, with travel topics written by volunteer authors – a move Wikimedia Foundation is known for. It’s called Wikivoyage, and it will be launching on the 15th this month. In an interview with Stephen Colbert on the Colbert Show last night, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales talked about the priorities of the organization, which included Wikivoyage. Wales also mentioned that after working on the project for the last 6 months, the travel site will be launching soon.
“We have a travel site that’s opening up soon, we will see how it goes…called Wikivoyage,” Wales said. Wikivoyage is a spin-off of the old Wikivoyage which launched in 2006. The old Wikivoyage started as a fork of Wikitravel, a web-based collaborative travel guide project that was launched in 2003. Internet Brands bought Wikitravel in 2006, and some of its editors left the project to create Wikivoyage. It was only last year when both communities decided to reunite under a new non-commercial project. This led them to the Wikimedia Foundation, who was asked if it was interested in hosting such a project. You can check out the beta version of Wikivoyage here.
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