Wikipedia is going under? No way!

There is talk around the blogosphere that Wikipedia is running out of money. Honestly, if this were to happen, it would require some terribly stupid decisions.

Alexa.com ranks Wikipedia the 11th most popular website on the Internet. Understandably, there are going to be some pretty hefty bandwidth costs associated with that popularity.

Jim Wales (the founder of Wikipedia) is opposed to commercializing Wikipedia… but honestly, there is a difference between commercialization and a sustainable business model. Advertisements would not take away from the service. Concerns range from advertiser influence to the fantasy that Wikipedia would undergo some sort of metamorphosis into an evil, money hungry corporation. Advertisers already have the ability to edit pages, so delivering targeted advertising would not open any new doors. And to prevent the evil corpratization, put some clever language into the organization’s constituation… something along the lines of non profit.

If people are not paying for something, they can keep their mouths shut about advertising. Ideally, yes, Wikipedia should be a utopia of information without advertising - but the bandwidth costs and salaries of employees have to come from somewhere. Why not corporations?

Advertising on the site could even be used as a selling point to encourage donations. Whether it be a “if we raise X million dollars the ads will be removed for another 6 months) or some sort of membership where ads disappear if you donate, there are viable options. Regardless of the ultimate long term decision, just throw up some Google AdSense, make a few million dollars, and keep Wikipedia alive. It’s a fantastic resource and I honestly wouldn’t mind looking a few ads in exchange for keeping it alive.