Today the biggest Internet protest in history is going down and as sites like Reddit and Wikipedia blackout against SOPA and PIPA, Fight for the Future has released an infographic update about where SOPA currently stands in Congress.
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Time to dust off the old Encyclopedia Britannica, because all your online facts are about to go unchecked. Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales has confirmed that the free online encyclopedia will shut down on Wednesday, January 18 in protest of the Stop Online Privacy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA), two anti-piracy bills that are currently being debated in Congress.
Wikipedia was born on Jan. 15, 2001, and, days before its 10th anniversary, founder Jimmy Wales reflected:
It’s hard to imagine that it’s been 10 years since I first edited Wikipedia. I remember that first day. I clicked on “Edit” and I wrote “Hello World,” and that was the beginning of Wikipedia and all the things that have come since then. I want to thank everyone who has helped. I want to thank all the people who have edited Wikipedia, who have contributed to this great knowledge base. I want to thank everybody who is reading Wikipedia, who is really engaging with ideas and knowledge. That’s what we made it for: We made it for you to read.
According to Wikipedia, 1,000 articles were written in its first month. From those humble beginnings, 400 million people now access the site monthly, according to comScore data, and Wikipedia now boasts more than 17 million articles in 270 languages.
Wikimedia Foundation executive director Sue Gardner on the next five years:
We want to reach 1 billion people by 2015. We want to persuade more readers to edit — more women, more people from the global south. We know that the more diverse the editing community becomes, the more comprehensive, accurate, and rich the encyclopedia will be.
On Nov. 15, Wikipedia parent the Wikimedia Foundation announced a fund-raising goal of $16 million by the end of 2010 “to maintain the infrastructure necessary to keep these sites free, stable, and running smoothly, while also continually improving the systems and architecture behind them.” On Jan. 1, the foundation announced that it had reached and exceeded its goal.
The Wikimedia Foundation said it received an average donation of $22 over the 50-day period, and contributions came from some 140 countries. For 2010 as a whole, the organization received more than 500,000 donations, more than doubling its total of 230,000 in 2009.
Alex Konanykhin, founder of WikiExperts.us, which helps promote visibility on Wikipedia, believes banner ads featuring Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales have too much visibility on Wikipedia, instead urging the nonprofit research destination to eschew fund-raising in favor of traditional advertising. Konanykhin wrote:
Would we have a more easily searchable Internet if, instead of relying on $23 billion of annual revenues, Google adorned every search page with its founders’ pictures and their personal appeal to donate? The banner with Mr. Wales’ image is viewed roughly 3,000 times every second. Wouldn’t it make more sense to show tasteful ads of advertisers like Rolex and Audi? Is the public truly being asked to donate $16 million to finance Wikipedia … or a personal ego trip?
Konanykhin explained that Wikipedia’s donations-only, no-commerce model limits it to using volunteers rather than qualified professionals, and he continues:
We believe that boycotting fundraising efforts of Wikipedia might compel it to raise billions via advertising and develop content of significantly better quality. Qualified contributors may and shall be compensated for their time. History has repeatedly proven that free labor is not the best business model in the long run and on a large scale.
The no-banners environment on Wikipedia was quite enjoyable and required a relatively low amount of donations. Now we have the worst of both words: huge Jimmy Wales banners which have become a subject of Internet-wide ridicule, combined with the tripled donations goal and failing content development strategy.
The Wikimedia Foundation set a fundraising goal of $16 million over the next two months, saying it needs the money “to maintain the infrastructure necessary to keep these sites free, stable, and running smoothly, while also continually improving the systems and architecture behind them.”
From a post on the Wikimedia Blog by Philippe Beaudette of its community department:
Today, I’m pleased to announce the launch of our 2010 annual fundraising drive, which we are referring to as a “contribution campaign.” This year marks a major milestone for Wikipedia. Ten years of revolutionizing access to knowledge. Ten years of our joint commitment to deliver the sum of human knowledge to every human being on the planet. For free.
Wikipedia and its sister sites champion a mission of effectively disseminating knowledge, free for use, free of copyright, and free of external advertising. Since its founding in 2001, the site has grown to 17 million articles in over 270 languages, and for many of those languages, Wikipedia is the only encyclopedia ever written. Wikipedia, and all the Wikimedia projects, are always there when we need them; for students, educators, professionals, and curious minds worldwide, these projects are simply the most convenient and readily accessible sources of information.
In the past year, we’ve been hearing about journalists actively using Twitter to source stories, get in touch with contacts, and promote their services. But a new study of journalists in the UK, France and Germany shows that Twitter isn’t the number one social media that journalists turn to: Wikipedia is. In fact, 60% of the journalists polled use Wikipedia to fact-check stories once a week. That says a lot about a new breed of journalist who is ready to embrace socially-edited information as valid for news stories. Read below the jump for more journalists in social media findings.
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Social gaming has some 250 million+ players on Facebook alone, its top companies have valuations in the billions, it attracts heavy investment from major corporations like EA, Disney, and Google, but here’s something social gaming doesn’t really have: Its own Wikipedia entry. As of this writing, Wikipedia’s Social Games entry is a placeholder, while the “Social casual games” entry is less than 100 words long, and even more shocking, comes with an editor’s note, “This article may not meet [Wikipedia's] general notability guideline.” Seriously! By contrast, even though they’re niche genres relative to social gaming, Wikipedia’s MMORPG entry is almost 4000 words, while the entry on first-person shooters is over 3000. So what’s the deal? I put the question to Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales, for his take:
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The pseudo-transparency of the social web contributes to a common marketing error – equating visitors with leads. Merely counting the number of unique website visitors is an insufficient method to determine the effectiveness of a marketing campaign. One must examine who the visitors are and what they sought once they landed. LeadForce1, a cloud-based B2B marketing automation platform developer, examined these factors for their enterprise clients, with findings to guide them – and us – on appropriate channels to generate leads. Read more
Sometimes it appears that Wikipedia has the world covered. And it just might. But some niche issues are complex and warrant their own space. Such is the case when it comes to real estate.
A group of dedicated real estate professionals thought it was time to build a specialized encyclopedia for home buyers, sellers and professionals. Launching this week is the Real Estate Wiki.
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