There are a few wars waging on the virtual battlefield of the Internet between all types of services, like that between search engines, or between social networks. Wikipedia has won the battle of open information management, and General Jimmy Wales is ready for his next engagement, which is apparently a dual-front fight against both Google and Facebook.

In a meeting of South African eggheads, Wales showed screenshots of his new effort, which is a search engine that has a Facebook-like interface. That would suggest some sort of social networking aspect, perhaps in rating results for certain search terms.

The idea of taking both Google and Facebook’s functionality and putting them together with a Wikipedia-like spirit is truly interesting. Wikipedia became what it is today relatively quickly, and if this works the way it should, it could take over as well.

Rumor: Wikipedia Founder Designing Google/Facebook-killer [Wired]