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Making ends meet for Wikipedia
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Scott Jagow: Wikimania starts tomorrow. That's the annual conference for online almanac Wikipedia. It's in Egypt at the Library of Alexandria,
Renita Jablonski has more.
Renita Jablonski: You can look up almost anything on Wikipedia, from honey bees to the Bee Gees, but stayin' alive can be a problem when your product is free and you rely on donations.
Wired.com's John Abell says Wikipedia's just scraping by on its annual budget of about $4.6 million.
John Abell: They're going to have to either figure out other places, other people, other big angels that can give them money or consider some aspect of commercialism.
Alana Semuels, who covers Wikipedia for the LA Times, says that's not likely anytime soon.
Alana Semuels: Well, the problem is that a lot of the most dedicated volunteers are vehemently opposed to advertising. If Wikipedia lost their support, it would be extremely detrimental to the site.
The Wikimedia Foundation hired its first fundraising director last year.
In Los Angeles, I'm Renita Jablonski for Marketplace.
<a href="http://original-research.blogspot.com/2008/07/sitting-on-opportunity.htm... some estimates</a>, wikipedia is actually facing a surprise windfall. There was talk awhile back of running out of money and needing to run ads, but I think things are pretty secure for the time being.
I was a candidate for the 2008 Wikimedia Foundation Board of Directors. One of my platform planks was the adoption of user-optional advertising on Wikipedia, so that $1 million might be allocated annually to the 100 editors who have contributed the most productively to article space. This would bring a higher level of accuracy and excellence to Wikipedia's weakening reputation.
I was voted into 15th place out of fifteen candidates. That should tell you something about where Wikipedians stand on advertising.
