Catawiki is a Dutch-language online wiki-based compendium of collector's catalogues which can be edited by every registered user with the edits subject to expert review.

The aim is to replace paper catalogues for collectibles, which are not always easily available, not up to date, and created by a small number of writers, and to provide catalogues for collectibles for which no paper catalogues existed yet.^[1] Editors can also maintain their own collection or create a free webshop where they can offer items for sale. The wiki also offers fora to discuss the categories.

The starting domain and currently the largest section is the comics section, with in September 2009 over 160,000 articles. In total, 42 collection domains had been defined by April 2009. By October 2009, pver half a million objects were available in the catalogue.^[2]

All functions of the site are free of charge, revenue is generated by ads and affiliated links.^[3]

Contents 1 History 2 Layout 3 Internationalization 4 See also 5 References 6 External links

[edit] History

Catawiki is created by René Schoenmakers, a Dutch comics collector, and Marco Jansen, a Dutch ITC developer. It went online on September 10, 2008.^[4] To give the site a kickstart, they purchased the rights to an existing Flemish comics database with 110,000 entries. During 2009, Erik Boeré, publisher of CD and DVD-ROM catalogues for postage stamps, coins and telephone cards, joint Catawiki and added its large databases to Catawiki, creating one of the biggest online stamp catalogues with a strong thematic index.

By December 2008, Catawiki reached some 50,000 pageviews per day.^[3] This increased to 100,000 by October 2009.^[2]

In October 2009, the site wsa nominated for an Accenture Innovations Award as "Best Web Concept".^[2] The site also started offering original art by comics authors for sale, including artwork of Fokke & Sukke.^[5]

[edit] Layout

Every object gets one page per version, e.g. every impression of a comic gets a separate page. Indicated is which editors own the comic, who sells it, what's it worth in different conditions, and then a long list of identifying and cataloguing information. No free text with further info or background is available, everything is strictly organized.^[4] Items are where possible illustrated by one or two pictures, e.g. for comics, the front and back cover is shown.

[edit] Internationalization

Currently, Catawiki only exists in the Dutch language, accessible through Catawiki.nl, the Belgian mirror catawiki.be and the general catawiki.com. The creators are trying to develop a world standard for online cataloguing which would also be usable for musea or libraries and which would use radio-frequency identification technology. A grant of €50,000 from the Dutch province of Drenthe.^[6]

[edit] See also

• List of wikis

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Catawiki
• Interview with Schoenmakers in Stripel Magazine