Comments on: Wikipedia Needs a Business Model not Donations – plead-for-business model

By: Chris Herbert

Chris Herbert — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 22:41:17 +0000

Alex, you are asserting that the only way an organization can be sustainable is if it raised money through donations or otherwise.

I challenge you with that assertion. It’s more powerful for a volunteer organization to be sustainable without the need for money. If an volunteer organization can only be sustainable because of money then it’s direction will be affected by the highest bidders.

We are experiencing this juncture at Silicon Halton. For 16 months this community has grown and evolved without the need for revenue. We’ve deliberately focused on making it sustainable based on interest, involvement in our events and work on projects and not on the need to raise money.

Maybe it would be a good idea to reach out to Jimmy Wales and ask him what his thoughts are about his business model and whether it is or isn’t flawed.

By: David

David — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 14:19:17 +0000

Donations are a revenue stream, so I think they should not be discarded on any business model. Why impose yourself this kind of limitation? As an example of a complimentary revenue stream for Wikipedia read about the Wikireader. Look at it here: http://thewikireader.com/

By: Sharon McGann

Sharon McGann — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 08:49:00 +0000

This is a classic example of the tragedy of the commons. Personally, I'd be prepared to make an annual donation because I use it so regularly.

On this topic, I am keen to know about more business model options for social enterprises for a group of social entrepreneurs in Sydney Australia, so if anyone has further examples please let me know.
Kind regards, Sharon McGann

By: raudensah

raudensah — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 06:43:00 +0000

The reason for Wikipedia’s success is in large part due to its non-commercial nature. If you compromise that, it would have the same effect as Google caught being “evil.”

Wikipedia is totally dependent on contributions, either to articles or financially and that’s the way it rolls.

By: Englestone

Englestone — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 17:36:00 +0000

At the end of the day a service is being provided..

I don't think it would hurt to at least consider some business models?

There has to be a happy medium?

A lot of non businesses these days act as businesses i.e. charities and educational institutions anyway.

-- Lee

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 20:14:00 +0000

Well, I agree with what's being said here to some extent. A great blog to read on the subject of Wikipedia, although relatively new, is WikiLog, and they've got quite a good write-up on what Wikimedia have done with their pledge and what the future is.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 17:35:00 +0000

buying stuff – craigs list, and lending money – Kiva, are different use cases than wikipedia. A business model is more than a slide show of boxes and arrows – wake up!

By: Kalyani Sastry

Kalyani Sastry — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 15:40:00 +0000

Wikipedia's goal is to bring knowledge to the planet, free of charge and free of advertising. Even if it aims to remain "slim" in its operational costs, eventually as it grows to cater to more languages & people and hosts more knowledge, across the globe, the lightweight approach to operational cost will not suffice. There will be higher maintenance overheads and to make it sustainable, I would agree that a first step towards finding a more strong & reliable source of revenue needs to be taken. The ideal case is surely when a commercial sister line provides this, it would surely not hurt. So I agree with Alex.

By: ronald van den hoff

ronald van den hoff — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 09:04:00 +0000

@Philippe: being a strategist you must agree with me that it is the responsibility of leaders to create a good & solid foundation under any enterprise. Especially in this case where many volunteers provide labour/knowledge for free: they trust Wikipedia and anything is allowed to maintain that trust!
So broadening the income could/should be a goal by itself, to preserve long term succes…

I like Alex' idea of hosting/licensing wikisoftware as a side line…especially companies with a sustainability objective would go for a solution like this.
So money can be made without compromising the original objective and goals of Wikipedia.

By: Philippe Méda

Philippe Méda — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 07:06:00 +0000

Dear Alexender,

As a strategist I genuinely think that donations in such a case as Wikipedia are a revenue model.

Obviously the revenue stream cannot be really controlled or easily forecasted. But let's be honest here: it's not worse than any click-based business model such as Google or Craig Lists: it's essentially a matter of combining a strong added value and enough visibility. Well I do believe that Amazon here is doing quite well.

And in time of crisis and distrust in the general financial framework, it's quite obvious that markets and companies will avidly seek new reasons to exist, above the pure sales > revenue process.

In such a world, donation-based activities such as Wikipedia, if only a few of them, have a strong legitimacy. If I go just a little bit further such business models are just an extension of open-source businesses: the community have the benefit of a tremendous service at the expense of a) nothing, b) a little time to actually create/update articles, c) financial donations.

And that's strictly the revenue model of Linux: very few are actually paying for the community, but it doesn't prevent you from sending $5 if you feel so (you don't have to be a $10,000 contributor).

The last point on "being evil or not", is not so naive. In a business such as knowledge management and diffusion, it's quite a core competency to be disconnected from any commercial pressure. The lack of "infomercials" in Wikipedia, when companies such as Coca-Cola are financing text books for children to learn reading and writing, is a strong and exclusive market position.

Hope that this will give you an alternative view on this BM. ; )