Should Wikipedia Sell Advertising?

The Narrative Fallacy writes "The LA Times has an interesting story on the state of Wikipedia's finances and how with 300 million page views a day, the organization could be worth hundreds of millions of dollars if it sold advertising space. Without advertising the foundation has a tough time raising its annual budget of $4.6 million. The 45,000 or so individuals who contribute annually give an average of $33 each, so campaigns, which are conducted online, raise only about one-third of what's needed. As Wikimedia adds features to its pages, such as videos, costs will rise. 'Without financial stability and strong planning, the foundation runs the risk of needing to take drastic steps at some point in the next couple years,' said Nathan Awrich, a Wikipedia editor who supports advertising."

Comments

Re:Prepare yourself

[TheLink]

The cake (or pie chart) is here:

http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Planned_Spending_Distribution_2007-2008

Not sure what happened to the 2006 one.

Re:Google is good

[dk.r*nger]

I think we're discussing putting Google ads on Wikipedia pages, not selling the whole thing to Google.

And Google Ads hardly gives Google control over your servers.

Re:My sympathy is limited

[huhwhatduck]

They explicitly moved to San Francisco to make their work more cost effective. San Francisco has cheaper and much more available international air travel, which is a big issue for the Wikimedia Foundation. And, of course, there are the resources of the general community. It's much easier to be connected to the Valley when you're in it.

Re:My sympathy is limited

[downix]

Actually, as I currently live in FL and am looking to the west coast for relocating, guess what, it actually *is* cheaper to live in the San Francisco area than in Florida. While the initial rent is a bit higher (about 3-5%) the taxes to operate are far lower, and the infastructure cost to the individual business is dramatically less.

Re:obviously they should sell advertising

[garett_spencley]

Or they could just get an AdSense account and put a tiny little "Paid advertisement" section at the very bottom of pages etc. and completely forget about it. No politics. No making deals with other advertisers. No pandering to the demands of advertisers etc. Plus, the ads would end up being extremely targeted and on-topic, plain-text only and non obtrusive.

It wouldn't make as much as selling banner spots to the highest bidder etc. that's for sure. But it would probably generate enough to pay the bills which is what really matters.

Re:Prepare yourself

[Anonymous Coward]

The phrase is better thought of as "keep your cake and eat it too" -- if you eat your cake, it's gone, so if you want to eat *and* keep it you're asking too much. :)

Re:I've got a better idea

[Tom]

While I had the same joke come to mind, I think the idea has serious merit. Try that thinking part again when you're sober. There are already marketing companies out there who will sell you a grass-roots campaign. There are already companies out there selling you the service of cleaning up any PR mess you made. I'm sure it would be less than three days before one of them offers a "we'll provide both, the consumers and the moderators to put your product into good light on Adipedia" service.