Search for an artist on any of the popular search engines, and the top three results are practically guaranteed: the artist's official Web site, Wikipedia entry and MySpace page -- often in that order. But while artists and their handlers devote massive attention to the Web site and MySpace, the Wikipedia page is often overlooked. Recent data suggests they may want to reconsider their priorities. According to data provided to Billboard from Yahoo -- the second-most popular search engine on the Web after Google -- those searching for artist information are selecting the Wikipedia entry link over artists' MySpace pages by a factor of more than 2-to-1. The Wikipedia entries are also more popular than artists' Web sites. Yet when compared with the number of artist profiles on MySpace, Wikipedia entries are noticeably fewer. MySpace claims 3 million artist profiles. Wikipedia does not have an exact count of artist entries, but estimates that it's in the "tens of thousands," according to Wikipedia Foundation head of communications Jay Walsh. What's more, because of Wikipedia's low profile relative to the MySpace hype machine, many artists and their managers remain ignorant of the resources available to them.http://www.reuters.com/article/internetNews/idUSN2148195720080322?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0&sp=true
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