11th of june 2007 - Florence Devouard

Wikipedia, a sustainable open
and free project ?
Amsterdam
11 june 2007
Florence Nibart Devouard
anthere@wikimedia.org
11th of june 2007 - Florence Devouard

Articles a year ago…
11th of june 2007 - Florence Devouard

Over 7 000 000 articles
11th of june 2007 - Florence Devouard

«I have the one page in our language right here…»
11th of june 2007 - Florence Devouard

African Languages slowly grow as a
Wikipedia presence
Language Native speakers Articles
(2006) (early 2007)
Afrikaans 6,4 M 6300
Amharic 17,5 M 350
Swahili 5,1 M 3100
Lingala 300 000 500
Malagasy 10,5 M 200
Wolof 3,5 M 200
Yoruba 20 M 750
Goal: at least 100 000 articles for any language
with at least 1 M native speakers
11th of june 2007 - Florence Devouard

One of the 10th most visited websites in
the world (according to Alexa.com)
But traffic growth is now slowing down
11th of june 2007 - Florence Devouard

154 Millions unique
visitors worldwide
(sept 06)
(According to
comScore World Metrix)
11th of june 2007 - Florence Devouard

But… who pays for this ?
11th of june 2007 - Florence Devouard

The legal entity behind Wikipedia:
Wikimedia Foundation
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Half of the revenu goes in hardware investment
11th of june 2007 - Florence Devouard

So, what is the business model ?
• Stable and scalable revenue streams
• Consistent with the non profit charity status
– (any substantial material transaction should be sufficiently
related to the pursuit of the charitable mission)
• Within with « the open and free content movement »
principles
– (eg, avoidance of proprietary software)
• Consistent with Wikimedia community wishes
– (eg, no advertisement)
Non rival, non excludable goods are public goods
11th of june 2007 - Florence Devouard

Which options are excluded or have been
left aside?
• The « pay to get an edit » strategy (PR agencies paying to
publish their approved biographies)
• Link affiliation strategy
• The subscription strategy (fee to access content)
• The dual licensing strategy (partial proprietary licensing of content)
• The monetization of consumer data or consumption
patterns
• The consulting strategy
• The merchant strategy
• The advertisement strategy
11th of june 2007 - Florence Devouard

Merchant model
Publishing of DVD, Paper versions
(Wikireaders,Wikipress, Wikijunior)
Problem: legal responsability
11th of june 2007 - Florence Devouard

The advertisement strategy
• Banner ads for sponsors
• Google ads
• Traditional on internet
• It would largely solve our financial needs (large traffic)
• But is controversial (not neutral, ethics)
• Would probably kill donations stream
• Tax issues
====> Wikipedia is free of advertisement
11th of june 2007 - Florence Devouard

Current strategy
• The gift economy
• The accessorizing strategy
• The service strategy
• The patronage strategy
• The brand licensing strategy
11th of june 2007 - Florence Devouard

The gift economy
Most of our revenue comes from the « gift » economy
Donations are mostly from readers who love Wikipedia
11th of june 2007 - Florence Devouard

Most of the donations are below 50 dollars
First matching donations
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70% of our donations are in US dollars…
11th of june 2007 - Florence Devouard

Accessorizing strategy
Selling accessories (T-shirts, coffee mugs,…)
http://www.cafepress.com/wikipedia
Not much motivation
(tee-shirts too heavy to carry ?)
11th of june 2007 - Florence Devouard

Service strategy
Revenu model based on a service revenue stream rather than a licence
revenue stream.
• Example of service: the datafeed
(live access to updated content rather than use of the free monthly dump)
In using the free content as part of a global product, a distributor limits
his costs as well as increase the global value of his product
He needs updated content, free of installation hassle
• Example of a future service: the print-on-demand
Services are limited as of today, but expansion to expect
11th of june 2007 - Florence Devouard

Patronage strategy
A company/organisation may financially support us
• To push certain languages (e.g. a regional languages)
• To support certain projects (e.g. Wikijunior)
• To support collection of content (eg, digitization)
• To support changes of copyright or ip laws
• to weaken a competitor, through plummeting of the
competitors’s market (uh, bad idea)
• To sponsor our annual conference, Wikimania
It may or may not be acceptable for the community
String-attached deals
11th of june 2007 - Florence Devouard

Brand Licensing strategy
Charging other companies for the right to use its brand
names and trademarks in creating derivative products
(DVD, Games…).
• Free use for promotion of projects
• Free use of media
• Free use for non profit organisations
• Royalties for commercial uses
Limited as of today, but expansion to expect
Issues:
- Many unauthorized uses
- Tms registration is expensive
German DVD since nov 2004
11th of june 2007 - Florence Devouard

Thank you…
11th of june 2007 - Florence Devouard