GLOBAL, FEBRUARY 2011 – Think of Qwiki as Wikipedia on the quick, "storytelling instead of search". A typical Qwiki entry has a series of images and a voice-over talking about the facts and figures it has aggregated from user-submitted content. It looks like a scene out of science fiction, but in an age where the possible is now, it’s well-poised to be part of the next big information boom.
So far aggregate news and information comes in purely text format, but soon there will be moving images, sound, even video. While it serves as an interactive encyclopedia for now, as the company grows, Qwiki’s Founder and CEO Doug Imbruce has expressed interest in making it a medium for brand stories. In an interview with Business Insider he says, “Ultimately, we hope to allow any third party, whether that’s a brand, an individual, or a small business, to create a Qwiki describing anything.”
The queries for Qwiki have already piled up, from companies such as small-time Napa wineries to Reuters. Imbruce is even imagining it as a tool for social media profiles. Just imagine your facebook profile in Qwiki format (Watch out for those tagged photos…).
But as Post-Advertising asks, can Qwiki successfully cross over from being a visual encyclopedia to being a promotional tool? Or will the lines between fact and bias be even more blurred? It shouldn’t take too long to find out.
