Wikimedia India - SWOT Analysis

Strengths

Community potential – big population,

growing internet penetration

Diversity

Passion for languages

More bang for the buck

Governments’ sway over the system – a

signature can move things

Low hanging fruits – under promoted

untapped space, Greenfield venture

Media proliferation

Absence of competing user-generated content

(UGC) websites

Weaknesses

Low brand awareness

Geographic expanse

Bureaucracy

Commons philosophy for creative content is

new

Online volunteering new

Challenges1

Technology issues

Wiki philosophy needs to be imparted

Freedom of Expression enforcement

inadequate

Opportunities

Literary tradition implies huge corpora

Potential to make a difference – in most Indic

languages, Wiki projects are the only websites

Donor potential (large and small)

Mediawiki Development –

internationalisation built-in rather than

localisation later

Economic growth can drive more support,

contribution, and readership indirectly

Driver for other South Asian and potentially

South East Asian demographics (Bangladesh,

Indonesia etc. have huge potential)

Threats

Newbie attrition, exodus, and even forking

due to cultural issues

Substitutes like FaceBook etc. – India has

deviated from the rest of the world trends in

this matter (eg. isolated success story for

Orkut)

Unexpected government intervention similar

to the Blackberry case

Unexpected economic slowdown

Conflict of roles – chapter vs office

1 Some of these are applicable to Wikipedias in Indian languages, but excluding English, though WMF in India has a mandate to develop participation in and deriving value out of English Wikipedia and sister projects.