Jason Calacanis in his “Media Philanthropy“mention that organization/site like Wikipedia can change the world if they monetize their site. Especially he was talking about Wikipedia, which in his evaluation would have been a US$5B worth, if that would have been a private company. As we all know Wikipedia run by Wikimedia foundation, a non-profit organization (with only five paid employees), are not supposed to monetize their site (well in traditional sense).

I am not really sure what is actual intention of his post, since he did mention his proposal to Wikipedia to put an AOL leader board and give that earning to charity. Though Jason sounds he was just trying to help up the open source projects but I doubt that. For example his AOL could/can help more by donating in charities like open source projects, but never did. An open source project like Mozilla foundation is popular without showing ads, there are plenty more. Maybe Jason forgot or completely ignored the fact that without showing ads also monetization can be done. Like sponsorship, if Jason was honest to help he would have proposed AOL sponsorship rather than to put a Ladder Board. From business perspective yes Wikipedia can monetize, but I really don’t think by showing ads. Wikipedia provide a global repository of information on every topic you or I can imagine, completely for free.

Wikipedia faces enough challenges every day just trying to provide a decent resource for the world. They face enough controversy, in fact more than their share. So Jason Calacanis’s almost noble thoughts for “Wikipedia” monetization aren’t good at all for Wikipedia. I sure think they can monetize their efforts by sponsorship or let’s say like Wiki-toolbar in co-operation with search engines (Just like Mozilla) which will earn them enough to bare their expanses.

In my opinion “Media Philanthropy”, should be generosity of successful profit organizations to sponsor open source projects and giving away a little for humanity. It shouldn’t be monetizing/commercialize open source projects. Commercialization of open source projects will hamper free flaw of information. AOL, Google, Yahoo & MSN can give more help to charity then “Wikipedia by showing ads”.

[tags]Jason Calacanis, Wikimedia, Wikipedia, Monetizing, Media Philanthropy, AOL [/tags]