An online platform that allows users from all around the world to write or update information based on credible sources. Wikipedia is a user-generated encyclopaedia. about wikipedia Wikipedia’s Business Model In 2003, the Wikimedia Foundation was founded, which is currently Wikipedia's parent company, and also manages the company’s other products like Wikiquote, Wiktionary, and WikiBooks. In 2003, Nupedia’s website was deactivated and its content was absorbed into Wikipedia, which adopted the first iteration of its jigsaw world logo. In 2002, Wales and Sanger agreed that Wikipedia would be a non-profit organization, and the firm withdrew from a project due to financial difficulties. Within a year of launch, Wikipedia International was also made available in the languages of French, German, Swedish, and Italian and a total of 20,000 articles have also been published. It was originally meant to be a for-profit corporation that also provided the website's bandwidth and server. In 2001, Sanger & Wales started ‘Wikipedia,' a side project with a significantly straightforward approval process. The flipside of this approval process was the rate at which art schools were produced with new media accepting only 21 pieces in its first year, not satisfied with the website's ability to distribute information at such a rapid pace. Previously, the pages required a seven-step approval process before they could be published in an attempt to ensure the articles were of the highest quality with editors expected to hold Ph.D.'s in the field of the publication. Larry Sanger, a programmer, was hired in January 2000 to supervise Nupedia’s pages. Following Wiki Wiki Web, the next major source of information was Nupedia, which was created by Jimmy Wales in 1999 and funded and underwritten by the dot com business ‘Bomis'. For any database of information gathered collaboratively by a community of users, Ward Cunningham created the first Wiki in 1995, known as the ‘Wiki Wiki Web,' after the Hawaiian word for ‘quick. Wiki predates the website itself, having been coined in 1995 by an American programmer named Ward Cunningham. Okay before we move on to its business model let's have a look at how this concept came to be in the first place.įAQs Origin of Wikipedia Wikipedia Business Model The First Wiki So now you know how popular this website is. This website contains over 5.5 million articles and 33 million registered users, which may surprise you. This is because it is run entirely by volunteers, and anyone can modify the article. They even have a Wikipedia page that claims Wikipedia is not a trustworthy source. Most of you are probably wondering who still uses it because we all know it's not a credible source, and even they are aware of it. It will be one of the top results if you type anything into Google. If you want to know the population of a country or the future film of your favourite actor, we all go to Wikipedia, the online Encyclopaedia. Aren't we all familiar with Wikipedia? They are the world's largest encyclopedia, and they are also completely free.