The Monetization of Wikipedia

Not sure what to make of reports that Wikipedia only has three to four months of cash left to operate, which came from comments made by Wikipedia chairwoman Florence Devouard at the Lift conference in Geneva. The cynic in me suggests this is high-profile begging for an entity that, in theory, should have zero problems raising money from any number of philanthropists – Mathew Ingram suggests Chad Hurley, Steven Chen, Jeff Bezos, Steve Jobs or "a dozen other billionaires" who could donate $1-million to $2-million. I think you could add Craig Newmark to any potential list.

There are suggestions Wikipedia’s financials "troubles" could be solved if it were acquired by a large multi-national or if it placed advertising on the site, or entered into a search relationship with Google a la Firefox (Jason Calacanis). Tony Hung raises the most obvious solution: raising money from its users. Of course, that assumes consumers are willing to pay for anything Web 2.0-related.

When an organization is so large and so popular, they don’t even have to do a “good” job of marketing itself and acquiring charitable contributions. If they were to do a *lousy* job, they’d still raise buckets and buckets of cash. And quite frankly, the cynic in me almost thinks that the announcement that they only have 3-4 months is only a way to raise awareness to that fact.

Even if the reports of Wikipedia’s possible demise turn out to be exaggerated, Wikipedia will raise all the money it needs to carry on. The service is simply useful, too valuable and popular to disappear. That said, you do have to wonder how Wikipedia is structured financially. It is a charity? Does the foundation have a long-term vision of generating sustainable funding? As the service grows and needs more bandwidth, servers, etc., does advertising or sponsorship or search commissions become a fact of life?