Intentionally launched far from the mercantile mania of Silicon Valley, in St. Petersburg, Fla., Wikipedia nevertheless helped turn Google into a verb and a multibillion-dollar business. It is now used by a majority of Americans who access the Internet, with about 53 percent of Web-connected Americans turning to it by mid-2010, up from 36 percent in 2007, according to a new report from the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project.

[...]

Nonprofit Wikipedia and very much for-profit Google turned out to be one of the great partnerships of the first decade of the 21st century. Because of the extensive Web links to sources and other content within Wikipedia entries, they tend to rank high on a Google search, said Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet project.

"Wikipedia, hand in glove with Google, has given the world a brand new way to think about access to knowledge and the sharing of knowledge," Rainie said.

Read More