Ever heard of Knol? No? It’s run by a little company that you most probably have heard of, Google. Knol is a site that hosts user-generated (when did we all agree to stop saying web 2.0?) articles about any topic under the sun. I suppose it sounds a lot like an online encyclopaedia, and when you say those words “online encyclopaedia” only one word tends to jump into your mind…
- Wikimedia Logo (Image Courtesy Of Wikimedia Foundation)
It comes as a slight surprise then that there is a press release on the Wikimedia foundation site that is simply titled “Wikimedia Foundation announces $2 million grant from Google”.
“The Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit that operates Wikipedia, today announced that it has received a $2 million (USD) grant from the Google Inc. Charitable Giving Fund of Tides Foundation. This is the Wikimedia Foundation's first grant from Google. The funds will support core operational costs of the Wikimedia Foundation, including investments in technical infrastructure to support rapidly-increasing global traffic and capacity demands. The funds will also be used to support the organization's efforts to make Wikipedia easier to use and more accessible.”
It seems like the ad’n’search giants at Mountain View want to support Wikipedia during its recent funding drive.
It seems that Google does indeed value Wikipedia’s rather unique place on the web, anyone searching via Google won’t have been able to miss how often Wikipedia articles float to the top the the search rankings. This in turn has seen a massive increase to the traffic that Wikipedia is now handling. Neilsen Online announced (warning, link is a pdf) a little while back that from April 2003 to April 2008 Wikipedia’s web traffic exploded by almost 8000%! Furthermore, in April 2008 the top refer to Wikipedia was indeed Google with an amazing 61% of home, and 66% of work visitors.
Looking at this latest news it’s certainly good to see such a benevolent act from Google, maybe “do no evil” is still a powerhouse at the centre of corporate decisions after all.
What are your thoughts on the Wikimedia Foundation? Could you survive without Wikipedia?! Let us know!
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