As Wikipedia becomes larger and more widely accepted, now with an Alexa rank in the range of the top 30 websites on the Internet, it’s beginning to have an impact on people’s perception, accuracy, and donations strategies. All of which have been, for the most part, positive.
A recent study by Nature Magazine, shows that Wikipedia is actually fairly close in accuracy to the Encyclopedia Brittanica.
A ZDNet blog post states that “The study found both had an equal number of what were called “serious errors,” while Wikipedia had somewhat more modest errors.”
Additionally, it seems that Wikipedia has recently begun a donations effort in order to continue operations as a free resource, and aims to be the PBS of the Web.
There have been arguments that all they would need to do would be to insert some contextual advertising (AdSense, YPN), but I think that defeats the purpose of being a more purist non-profit organization, steering away from helping another company profit from its business.
Might not be a bad opportunity for a significant donation from Google, Yahoo!, MSN, etc. Or what if Google/Yahoo! allowed them to display their ads, and gave them 100% of the earnings?
Andy Beal is an internet marketing consultant and considered one of the world’s most respected and interactive search engine marketing experts. Andy has worked with many Fortune 1000 companies such as Motorola, CitiFinancial, Lowes, Alaska Air, DeWALT, NBC and Experian.
You can read his internet marketing blog at Marketing Pilgrim and reach him at andy.beal@gmail.com.
