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Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales: How $35 Donations and Two Dozen People Power the Web Giant

Posted Feb 18, 2009 05:22pm EST by Sarah Lacy in Internet, Media, Newsmakers, Tales of the Valley
Related: YHOO, GOOG, ^IXIC

Whether it’s Yahoo, Facebook or a no-name blogger, everyone on the Web is spending sleepless night after sleepless night trying to figure out how to wring more ad revenues out of traffic. Well, almost everyone on the Web.  Not Jimmy Wales, as you’ll see in the accompanying interview.

Wales is the iconoclastic founder of Wikipedia, [www.wikipedia.org] the site millions of people use to learn more about everything from Adolph Hitler’s girlfriend to the origins of Pad Thai. But there’s one thing you won’t find on Wikipedia: ads. The non-profit company eschews traditional money-making ventures, funding itself through donations instead. And despite persistent rumors questioning Wikipedia’s financial health, Wales says that strategy works just fine. Indeed, in ten days in December, the company raised $3 million from passionate supporters — enough to fund its business for all of 2009.

I caught up with Wales at Wikipedia’s San Francisco headquarters and he was happy to tell me all about it, and much more. Still to come: Wales on Wikipedia’s early days, the controversies over accuracy, and how he’ll cater to the next billion people on the Web.

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