March 25th marks a very special day in the history of the Internet. 14 years ago today, Ward Cunningham publicly launched the revolutionary technology that is the wiki.
The design principles that make up wiki allow us all to create and connect knowledge as never before. Find out more about the strengths and opportunities of wiki from Ward himself.
Wiki is about people, people, technology and people
Working on Ward’s wiki and all the wiki communities that followed didn’t just drive people to adopt another new Web technology. Through wiki, we discovered an organic way of working together online, one that would come to be known as The Wiki Way.
Today is fondly known as the WikiBirthday, and we’d like to take this opportunity to look back and remember how far the wiki has come, celebrate our collective, collaborative accomplishments, and remind all those who use and love the Web of just how vital wikis of all stripes are. Please take a minute to pause and enjoy the video of Ward lighting the candles on this year’s WikiBirthday cake below, and the AboutUs crew attempting to collaboratively blow out the candles (emphasis on the attempting part.)
We’d like to you to join us in spreading the word about wiki’s 14th birthday.
Most of all, we want to hear what your moment of wiki discovery was, in whatever way you know best to tell it. Tweet, blog, reblog or just plain converse to share your WikiBirthday stories, and don’t forget to tag your words and images as WikiBirthday (or #WikiBirthday for all you hashtagging Twitterati).
We would also like to engage you in a little wiki fun with an invitation to collaborate on this blog post by editing the wiki page that mirrors it (use the official annonymous account at BugMeNot.com if you prefer to not log in). 
Dive in and edit the wiki page, we’ll update the live post with your changes regularly. Include your stories or birthday notes there if you wish.
The normally plain dressing Ward Cunningham came to work wearing a Wikipedia Revolution tee-shirt on wiki’s birthday. Andrew Lih’s book devotes the better part of a chapter to the founding of Ward’s wiki 14 years ago.
With that, we’d like to wish everyone a Happy 14th WikiBirthday!
{ 27 comments… read them below or add one }
*fweeee* happy birthday wiki old chap!
Deploy my first corporate Wiki over a decade ago. Never looked back since.
HappyBirthday Wiki!
Happy Birthday Wiki!
It’s amazing to see people coming together to show a collective responsibility for the betterment of our world.
Happy 14th birthday!
Happy 14th. Onward and up, Ward!
Happy Birthday, Wiki! May you live to a ripe old age!
It’s an honor to share birthdays with wiki!
Ward, you have changed the world. Better still, you have enabled others to change the world. Happy WikiBirthday!
Happy birthday, wiki world!
To a great friend to collaborative design – happy 14th wiki!
Happy Birthday, Wiki!
Thank you for helping so many people connect, Ward!
Hooray for anonymous, collaborative writing! DocumentMode forever!
Happy Birthday, Wiki. A Teenager.
Happy 14th birtday Wiki.
Happy birthday to the technology that has created communities filled with new friends and enemies (read: better trolls), all of whom I cherish.
Wow. Fourteen. Stop making me feel old wiki technology. :[.
Anyway, happy birthday to wiki technology and a great thanks to everyone whom have helped wiki develop into the software we all know and love today and major kudos to Ward Cunningham!
Happy birthday dear beloved wiki. Well done so far! It’s time to hit puberty now.
Happy birthday wiki! It is amazing how far we have come in these 14 years. Thank you Thank You, THANK YOU Ward for the brilliant idea, it is transforming so many lives!
– Peter Thoeny – founder of TWiki.org and CTO at TWIKI.NET
Happy birthday Wiki !
Happy birthday wiki, devine mindchild, nucleus of the http://c2.com/cgi-bin/wiki?GlobalBrain, on the way to TheSingularity. Based on love and wisdom, the best is still to come.
Happy Wikiday, God Bless you Saint Cunningham!
My (small w) wikipedia was brought up with Saint Cunningham’s hyperperl code on 2001-12-06. Full history [http://gay.hfxns.org/AboutThisSystem here!]
Happy birthday to Wiki.
Please someone eat some cake for me.
Yea! Happy birthday (or Hau oli La Hanau?) Wiki!
Happy Birthday to you.
May you be the next killer app
Wow, Ward! Has it been more than 14 years since you told me about your ride on the wiki-wiki bus?
How time flies.
Happy Birthday, Wiki!
Ward Happy Birthday to your invention, the Wiki – http://twitter.com/ralphtq/status/1481652895
happy birhtday up to 20 yearse