What does Wikipedia need?

Wikipedia is a trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, which is a non-profit foundation. Because their goal is to provide people across the world with access to knowledge, I don’t think selling out would help them stick to their purpose. Most non-profits make their money through donations, but only in part. They also receive grants from the government and foundations, and they have tax exempt status. Selling to Google wouldn’t be a good idea because Google already has a similar site known as Knol; Google offers a monetary incentive for its’ authors, holding them accountable and providing them a monetary incentive to provide good content. Ultimately, If I were in charge of Wikipedia I would have people pay membership dues to use the service, having all money go back into the company. I would also have a better system in place to ensure the content is more accurate and not as biased (which has been a complaint in the past). As a non-profit, any surplus revenues cannot go to owner shareholders or employees so how they can spend their money is limited. If Wikipedia is looking to make a profit beyond paying their employees, etc then they would have to give up their non-profit/tax exempt status. Cassandra Fronzo

Good question.  Here’s my response…. Go with the Google model.  Surround the content with paid ads relevant to the content.  Throw travel ads on the page about the Bahamas.  Place ads for snoring aids on the page about sleep apnea.  Place ads for the Desert Botanical Garden on the page about Dale Chihuly.  I don’t believe this type of advertising would compromise the integrity of the content, but it would give Wikipedia some dough that they could throw at some quality editors. Chris Sietsema

I think that Wikipedia should start taking ads, but make sure they are relevant based on the topic. With that said they need to ensure there is no undue influence over the content of the topic, and they need to clearly label the ads. In my mind this is no different than how Google does their ads in their search results or in Gmail. They should also start making companies pay to have a a profile that the company can have full control over. I could see this profile being displayed side-by-side with a publicly editable topic like what currently exists. They could charge them a monthly or yearly subscription fee per topic/product/company. If Wikipedia were to allow this type of activity they must make sure they have controls in place to make sure that companies can only create these profiles for topics/products/companies that they directly are related to or own. No matter what, I do not think they should start charging the general public for access or editing rights in anyway. This would simply discourage the use of the site and fracture the knowledge base by encouraging others to setup their own similar service which may not have such strict independence guidelines. Justin Wilson

Wikipedia’s problem stems from how we think about content and information in this country. We produce content and we never place a value on it. Take a look at the magazine businesses.  Subscriptions are cheap and advertising pays for for the content which to produce without it is expensive. Add to that model a lack of editorial objectiveness because it might upset an advertiser. In the UK, magazine subscriptions are expensive, editorial can be as objective as it wants and advertising supplements the cost. In essence the way we think about what we produce trains people to not value it. In fact, they expect it to be free. After all we’ve had decades of free network television which embedded it into our brains. If I ran Wikipedia I’d charge a recurring monthly subscription. Supplement it with advertising and put together a research board to verify suspicious posts.  In the end, I don’t believe we will change how we place value on content until businesses like Wikipedia and several companies like them cease to exist. Roger Hurni

About the Author: Eric Reid

I am the Social Media Services Manager for Off Madison Ave. I've been with the company since 2006, when I was hired to do SEO, and link building in particular. When social networking sites started cropping up, at first I started using them to create backlinks - but they weren't the best for that, given all of the "nofollow" attributes. However, I did see the potential for all of the direct referral traffic they represent. Since then I've been actively pursuing both tactics for clients: Links that can help them for search, and social postings that get them involved in the conversation. It's about the coolest job you could ever get. ;)

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