Wikipedia has added nearly 20 million unique monthly visitors in the past year, making it the top destination for online news and information, according to Nielsen//NetRatings.

In May of this year, Wikipedia had about 46.8 million unique visitors, 72 percent more than those from June 2006. Wikipedia has remained on the top of the news and information category every month so far this year – way ahead of the Weather Channel site, with a margin of about 10 million visitors in May.

Wikipedia, run by the nonprofit group Wikimedia Foundation Inc., allows thousands of users, editors and administrators to make edits, create new pages and correct mistakes. This user-run format is often negatively viewed, sued for misinformation or vandalised. Its strength, however, is hard to ignore: When breaking news happens, the pages can be updated in real-time.