The New Cliche: "It's the Wikipedia of..."

You know something has arrived when it’s used to describe a phenomenon. Or what people hope will be a phenomenon. Here’s a sampling:

• Laptops This from Nicholas Negroponte, describing his $100 laptop for the developing world (via Andy Carvin's Waste of Bandwidth): "It's the Wikipedia equivalent (of hardware)," he said, describing the spirit of the laptop initiative.
• Gasbuddy  Poster at ezboard: “It's the Wikipedia of Gas pumps. I use it whenever I need gas. I can't believe I forgot about it until now.”
• New York Times — This from a Xanga blogger: “It's the Wikipedia of newspapers: great resource with plenty of interesting but useless content. For goodness' sake, it's a newspaper, not Cosmo Girl.”
• The UK Good Food/Good Pub guide, described on Wikipedia chat as “It's the wikipedia of food guides”
• Urban Dictionary — described by this blogger as “the Wikipedia of the streets beyach!”
• Sushi World Guide — “it seems the community is still growing. It is the 'Wikipedia of Sushi'.
• Pure Energy Systems – “ We will be the Wikipedia of alternate energy technology.”
• Wondir — hailed on the unofficial google blog as “the Wikipedia of answer sites”
• Dermatlas — described here as “the Wikipedia of dermatology atlases“
• Math World — described here as “the wikipedia of math”
• GuitarWiki — described by a visitor as possibly becoming “the Wikipedia of the guitar world“

Comments

[Gerard]

What is sad is that they mean it in a positive way. However, Wikipedia is chock full of errors and, while it certainly has its place, it's hardly something to compare a quality product to.

[Larry Bouchie]

It reminds me of one that was around for a long time, and still pops up -- "It's like (some existing technology) on steroids!"

Though I confess, I have occasionally used this as a PR rep. Looking back, it was a lazy description, and at least I did move on to better ones.

[Alan Eggleston]

Maybe the problem isn't that people are referring to things as "the Wikipedia of..." but that they stop there; they don't come up with other comparisons. Are people lazy, or are they in such a rush to do more in less time that they latch on to the first metaphor that comes to mind?