Oilman pointed to this first, so he deserves the link credit. Bravo, Todd - your taste in entertainment makes me an even bigger fan than before.
Like Todd, I watched this segment last night and couldn't help but think how plugged in Colbert's staff must be to the Web 2.0 world. Unlike so many parodies of Internet trends, I was surprised to see a gaffeless, accurate and needle-sharp skewering of Wikipedia. Watch for yourself:
Brilliant, no? I admit - sometimes I actually enjoy Colbert even more than the Daily Show. And, no offense to Mr. Cutts, but this is my kind of video... Maybe we could have Webguerrilla and Oilman do their own "Word" segment on the right hand side of Matt Cutts' videos - I'm laughing just thinking about it.
Update: Newsvine has good coverage of the events that followed, including Mr. Colbert's banning from Wikipedia.
This is one of the funniest videos I’ve seen in a long time. It’s very witty. I use Wikipedia mostly to look up computer terms that I don’t understand. It’s very up to date in that realm.
The video was not working when I visited. I really want to see it. Anybody know an alternative URL?
EGOL - I updated the video link so it should work now. I think this is part of the riff between Viacom & YouTube/Google.
Umm....so was this post supposed to be revived from the summer?
I was wondering the same thing. I emailed Rand about it, I think it's a bug in the compose entry interface.
I suspect that Colbert's staff were tipped off to this idea by a long article about Wikipedia in the New Yorker magazine a couple of weeks ago. (Sorry, can't find a link to the article online.)
I've heard colbert mention wikipedia before. He did a short piece on sigmund freud a few months ago and made a big point about how he read the entire wikipedia article on him and was therefore an expert.
In a time when our own president refers to the net as the "the internets," colbert and co seem fairly plugged in.
Someone created a Colbert Wiki at wikiality.com. Nice touch.
Colbert makes such a 1984 point, where you can say something and have the majority of the population believe it, then later say the exact opposite and have the majority believe it. Oceania is at war with Eurasia and always has been. No, now Oceania is at war with Eastasia and always has been. His video was really funny, but it was also kind of eerie.
Take a look at the Wikipedia talk page for "Elephants." It is funny!
I think that this is a testament to the devotion of wikipedians.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_elephant...
hahaha, go wikipedia