One of our ever-vigilant readers (many thanks ‘stumpy’, Ed) brought our attention to this very sparsely populated site, bearing the logo of the multi-channel surfing MEN Media group.

Although the introduction promises that the site will be “the definitive Manchester guide”, there’s little to demonstrate that as yet – although there are headings leading through to information on Manchester Airport, the city itself, health issues and hotels.

In a bid to find out more How-Do tracked down a spokesperson for the group, posed the following questions to them and got back the following answers…Wiki’d

When was the wiki set up?

Around 6 months ago as part of an editorial project to test and ‘play around with’ new media. The site has never been promoted or officially launched.

More recently Paul (Lomax, head of new media at the MEN) and his team have been focussing on the launch of City Life and the Homesmine Project

What is the group trying to achieve through this?

Another Wiki idea

It is vitally important for Paul and his team to manage the content of the Wiki pages from a business point of view – all of this is being considered at the moment.

Why is this a good platform for the MEN to be involved with - what makes it special?

Once the research has been completed Paul and his team will know if a Wiki page is appropriate or not.  At that stage it may: a) be turned off; b) be turned into something completely different or; c) stay as it is.

Is there a dedicated team that will be working to put this together?

The New Media team, led by Paul, is working on this, as well as Manchester Online, which is also due to be updated and expanded.

As part of Manchester Online, Paul and his team are currently putting together a group of Manchester Bloggers.
 
When will it launch proper?

Once the New Media team has completed its research and evaluated all media they will make a strategic decision on how to proceed.

http://wiki.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/articles/Main_Page

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Comments (6)

2  By Simon Wharton , on 27-10-2008 12:47 It depends how it's deployed. News sources will increasingly use User Generated Content. It delivers increased prolonged dwell time on the site and so lots of opportunities for serving ads. Plus someone else writes it and I expect an Ed moderates it. So they get copy which generates Google love and someone else does the work. It's nice thinking whichever way they deploy if they do. Report

5  By Mark Stern , on 28-10-2008 15:58 Dear MEN    We're watching you! And we know about Manclopedia.    Sincere reports,    Mark Stern Report

6  By Enjoy Manchester , on 31-10-2008 12:01 You can still view it....    Try a Google search for     cache:http://wiki.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/articles/Main_Page    And you can still view the site, despite the link now being removed! Report