There was an article in the New York Times a couple days ago discussing new uses for wikis – namely, using them in the context of product reviews, as Amazon.com has started to do.

For those unfamiliar with the technology, a wiki essentially allows multiple people to edit one webpage. A well-known application is Wikipedia, which attempts to be an encyclopedia that is editable by all users. The idea is that, if everyone builds on each other’s knowledge, we can compile a well-informed encyclopedia on the web.

One issue that Wikipedia reports is that sometimes inaccurate information is added, or worse, something malicious happens to a page (erasing content or writing inappropriate content). So to keep the content appropriate and accurate, a fair amount of moderation is needed.

It seems like with product reviews, this problem can only get worse. While a cursory look at Amazon’s recently-edited wiki entries didn’t reveal any issues, I would imagine that you would have issues with product advocates trying to spin the entry to be in favor of the product.

In the case of Amazon, there are about five different types of reviews – editorials, discussion boards, user reviews, etc. – so I’m not as worried that customers would receive a biased review. But is the expansion of this idea worthwhile, or more trouble than its worth?