And it may just be the prototype of all big web destinations in the future.
The Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit organization behind the immensely popular Wikipedia online encyclopedia, just announced that it has reached its fundraising goal for 2008, which will allow the foundation to cover its operating expenses for the current fiscal year, ending June 30, 2009. Overall, a total of 125,000 donors gave over $6.2 million during 2008, …
According to Jimmy Wales, these donations will be used to pay for the day-to-day operations of the Wikimedia Foundation, including the costs of hosting and bandwidth, as well as the salary of its small staff of only 23 people. The Wikimedia foundation will also use these funds to support outreach events like the Wikipedia Academies and to help its volunteer community.
No Advertising
The Wikimedia Foundation has always declined to run advertising on its pages. Given that it is one of the most popular destinations on the Internet, it could surely make more than $6.2 million in revenue every year, but the organization, and Jimmy Wales in particular, have always vehemently rejected this idea in favor of direct donations from users.
So, the 9th most visited site in the USA runs on open source software. It’s content is generated by the visitors. It’s FREE. And does not even need advertising support.
WOW.
How could any other online encyclopedia compete?
WordPress.com (the site that runs this blog) is ranked #24.
It’s free. Open source. Has very, very little advertising. And has very few employees, just like Wikipedia.
Most of the code is written by volunteers. The content put up by bloggers, like me.
=== UPDATE === Rockin’ points to this post in response:
Just caught myself intrigued by an article about Wikipedia cofounder Jimmy Wales possibly losing his board seat. It was on gawker.com and not very complimentary (understatement). Then these few sentences about Wikipedia and made me think it really ought to be called repupedia. “Incompetence and infighting are endemic to nonprofits, of course. But Wikipedia’s bureaucracy is distinctly, fearsomely awful. The site, which dictates the online reputation of countless living people and companies, itself operates by rules that are completely incomprehensible, determined by a self-appointed group of volunteer editors who can seldom stop arguing over obscurities to explain their ways to outsiders.” Food for thought about how Wikipedia catalogues all these institutions’ and individuals’ reputations online.
That’s from Valleywag / Gawker … not your most reliable source. Less reliable than Wikipedia, I’d say.
Rick McCharles 