For all the hype of Web 2.0, few internet ventures have embraced interactivity as thoroughly and radically as Wikipedia, the revolutionary free online encyclopaedia. With over 1.8m articles in English, all written by volunteer contributors, Wikipedia is fast becoming a reputable and popular source of reference and currently ranks as the world’s ninth most trafficked site. But there is a major difference between Wikipedia and the other top 10 websites: it is a not-for-profit operation which refuses to carry advertising.
In April, Wikipedia’s co-founder, Jimmy Wales, used an interview to announce that he was considering ways of making the operation more commercial. Although he continues to eschew advertising, he aired the possibility of hosting sponsored trivia programs and games to boost revenue. Wales is adamant that no decisions have been taken but his comments were clearly intended to open a debate on how Wikipedia should be funded. The site is currently supported by donations to the Wikimedia Foundation which raised $1m (£0.5m, E0.7m) in 2006. But the foundation expects to spend $3m before the end of 2007; it doesn’t take an options trader (Wales’s former occupation) to work out that this is unsustainable.
The Wikimedia Foundation has already started exploring other ways of boosting its funds. Last month it released a CD-Rom of the encyclopaedia with 2,000 English language articles on science, geography and the arts. Retailing at $13, the product is aimed at schools that do not have fast or reliable internet access. But it is unlikely to make a significant profit; Microsoft’s established CD encyclopaedia, Encarta Premium 2007, costs $27 and contains 64,000 articles. A CD-Rom also misses the point of Wikipedia, which changes quickly according to contemporary events.
In December, Wikipedia made tentative steps towards advertising. Virgin Unite, the charitable arm of Richard Branson’s stable of companies, offered to match every dollar raised during a fundraising stint in return for a logo at the top of each page. But the uproar among the website’s core users was deafening, with one prolific contributor resigning his membership amid high publicity.
This taps into a core problem with Wikipedia. Although it is often spoken of as an encyclopaedia written by millions of users, the reality is quite different. While there are 4.5m registered Wikipedia users, the majority of page alterations are carried out by a small, hardcore group of contributors; 2% of all users make 73.4% of all edits. And, according to Wells, the real community behind Wikipedia consists of a few hundred volunteers who know each other personally and have regular face-to-face meetings.
For this group of hardcore users, advertising is a serious problem. Around a hundred of them have signed up to a group called ?Wikimedians against Advertisements? out of concern that commercial content could damage Wikipedia’s success. But more prevalent is a misplaced anger towards advertising in general; one user argues that it ?consists of half-truths, omissions, misrepresentations, irrelevant associations and outright lies? and ?is the very antithesis of verifiable and neutral information?.
That this ideological bias against advertising is so prevalent amongst Wikipedia’s core contributors is worrying and poses questions about the impartiality of much of the site’s content. For the most part, Wikipedia’s rule that articles must be written from a neutral point of view is observed; however, arguments regularly lead to the deletion of facts or entire pages. If the coterie which is responsible for so much of Wikipedia’s policy and editorial processes is in one mind about the ethics of advertising, it poses serious questions about what other controversial views they share and how this affects the reliability of other entries.
Without this hardcore group of users, the massive improvements that have taken place on the site in recent years – including better accuracy and the citing of sources – would not have been possible. But they should not be able to hold the site to ransom; since its inception in 2001, the online encyclopaedia has barely changed and still lacks the rich video and audio content which is now so popular online.
Some third-party sites are already monetising Wikipedia’s content, which can be reproduced because it is licensed under a free documentation license. Tscholars.com, an online encyclopaedia, copies Wikipedia articles and sells targeted Google text ads alongside them, as do several other rivals. Text ads do not need to affect the content or its impartiality as they are placed automatically, without any human involvement. It would also be possible to block the commercials which worry Wikimedians the most, such as those which sell ?miracle cures? or drugs.
For now, Wells is hoping to fund Wikipedia’s expansion with his commercial venture, Wikia. This site licenses the same software which powers Wikipedia to other online communities so they can create niche content on entertainment, gaming, computing, sports and health. Federated media then sells targeted adverts which are linked to these niche interests on behalf of Wikia.
Wikia is also about to move into the lucrative search engine market, currently dominated by Yahoo! and Google. Wells believes he can use the same collaborative technology which has made Wikipedia a success to take 5% of the market before the end of the year.
But one thing is clear. Ruthlessly relevant, targeted and discreet advertising has been a major ingredient in the success of Web 2.0. Unless Wikipedia can create new streams of commercial revenue to expand and adapt, it will get left behind.
