google.com

 (visit site)
Search the world's information, including webpages, images, videos and more.
124
trailers

Google Co-Founder Donates $500,000 To Wikipedia

Sites include , . Published on November 23rd, 2011. Written by Anthony West.

These days you can’t visit Wikipedia’s website without seeing Jimmy Wales’ big mug bearing down on you with some request for a ‘donation’. Wikipedia ‘needs your help’ he likes to say. Well, help has come from Sergey Brin, one of Google’s very wealthy co-founders. Brin decided to extend his generosity by donating $500,000 to help the struggling Wikipedia keep the show on the road.

The donation was part of a joint effort between Brin and his wife, Anne Wojcicki, the co-founder of 23andme. The couple apparently felt moved by the generous and free service carried out by Wikipedia. But how long can Wikipedia continue to function as an ad-free service? Most users (include yours truly) are more than happy to nip over to Wikipedia every now and then, grab some information and click away—and I have for one have never felt like donating to Wikipedia. For me the there’s no cause and there are plenty more websites that I would rather give my hard earned money to.

Perhaps its time Jimmy Wales and crew got an Adsense account. Get some contextual ads running on the billions of page views generated each month and I am sure there won’t be need for an annual fundraising drive. It’s a thought.

Do you donate to Wikipedia? If you do, tell us why in the comments below.

This news story was filed under Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

3 Responses »

  1. ive donated to wiki in the past and see their mission as one that lines up with free speech and creating a better planet.

  2. Thanks to Sergey Brin of Google. I haven’t donated yet, but planning to donate in the near future. Wikipedia have a good mission, making it free and ad free at the same time is a great idea. Adding Adsense on it will be effective also.

  3. They can easily be in the top 10 websites in terms of earnings if they decide to monetize those boring looking white spaces on their pages.

Leave a Comment

Please note: comment moderation is enabled and may delay your comment. There is no need to resubmit your comment.

SiteTrail Subscriptions

Advertising

SiteTrail Add-ons

Already a member? Sign In
Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Digg This Add to Delicious Email to Friend More...