Open Holland2007

11th of june 2007 - Florence Devouard


Wikipedia, a sustainable openand free project ?

Amsterdam11 june 2007

Florence Nibart [email protected]


Articles a year ago…


Over 7 000 000 articles


«I have the one page in our language right here…»


African Languages slowly grow as aWikipedia presence

75020 MYoruba

2003,5 MWolof

20010,5 MMalagasy

500300 000Lingala

31005,1 MSwahili

35017,5 MAmharic

63006,4 MAfrikaans

Articles(early 2007)

Native speakers(2006)

Language

Goal: at least 100 000 articles for any languagewith at least 1 M native speakers


One of the 10th most visited websites inthe world (according to Alexa.com)

But traffic growth is now slowing down


154 Millions uniquevisitors worldwide

(sept 06)

(According tocomScore World Metrix)


But… who pays for this ?


The legal entity behind Wikipedia:Wikimedia Foundation


Half of the revenu goes in hardware investment


So, what is the business model ?

• Stable and scalable revenue streams• Consistent with the non profit charity status

– (any substantial material transaction should be sufficientlyrelated 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


Which options are excluded or have beenleft aside?

• The « pay to get an edit » strategy (PR agencies paying topublish 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 consumptionpatterns

• The consulting strategy• The merchant strategy• The advertisement strategy


Merchant model

Publishing of DVD, Paper versions(Wikireaders,Wikipress, Wikijunior)

Problem: legal responsability


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


Current strategy

• The gift economy

• The accessorizing strategy

• The service strategy

• The patronage strategy

• The brand licensing strategy


The gift economy

Most of our revenue comes from the « gift » economyDonations are mostly from readers who love Wikipedia


Most of the donations are below 50 dollars

First matching donations


70% of our donations are in US dollars…


Accessorizing strategy

Selling accessories (T-shirts, coffee mugs,…)

Not much motivation(tee-shirts too heavy to carry ?)

http://www.cafepress.com/wikipedia


Service strategy

Revenu model based on a service revenue stream rather than a licencerevenue 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 limitshis 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


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 communityString-attached deals


Brand Licensing strategy

• 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

Charging other companies for the right to use its brandnames and trademarks in creating derivative products(DVD, Games…).


Thank you…

Open Holland2007

Technology

Transcript of Open Holland2007