Is Runescape as important as Wikipedia?

Compete just posted their second listing of the Attention 20 - a rating of websites by how much time people actually spend on them. I'm glad that this month they've picked up on the categorizations that I had to do by hand the last time, well done Compete. Anyway, Runescape (#16 - .32%) is still catapulting in the ratings, and is now pretty damn close to Wikipedia (#14 - .35%). That begs the bigger question, who provides more value?

Yes that's a loaded question, but worth asking when one is a total media darling and example of all that is right and good on the Internet, and the other is largely shunned except for one stinking article in the Wall Street Journal - which pointed out that it is likely a $500m+ acquisition target.

"But Nabeel, Wikipedia provides valuable information and is an example of the power of the people to create that information. Runescape has bad graphics.", I hear you say.

Ah, but while Wikipedia's information is fleeting and sometimes inaccurate, Runescape offers something more lasting. It offers a virtual third place for the creation and strengthening of our social fabric. And in our age of Bowling Alone, aren't products that add snippits of social value just as important as one's that add snippits of knowledge?

Look at the relative press of every other company in the top 20, and despite a microcosm of attention on virtual worlds, I think currently it doesn't risk being overhyped at all. It may in fact be the most underhyped Internet technology ever.




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