Can you imagine any company or firm survive without revenue earning? The answer is NO; Revenue is the fuel for the organization for the survival and growth prospect of the company. With the passage of time, the source of earning not comes by producing goods or value addition by service but also various other forms. A Most Popular knowledge base search engine known as Wikipedia nowadays asking donation from users of its page. A Wikipedia has so much amount of informative material if one General person only reads the headings, title or subtitle of it then he must required approximately 400 years to read out all. It would be very interesting to know about the Historical aspect also.
Historical Background of Wikipedia
Wikipedia has more than 6.13 million articles, 39.59 million registered users, 32.5 million active editors, 1138 total admins and an average 550 new articles a day just on the English version. On 20th June, 2003 two IT professional Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger launch it; the Wikimedia which is Non Profit organization incorporated in USA exempt from Federal Income Tax as well as contribution to it is qualify for tax deductible. This foundation promotes 12 products out which Wikipedia one of them; It support other free knowledge sharing websites like wikitionery, wikibooks, wikinews, wikiquote, wikibooks etc. Today as on date, it has approximately total 400+ Employees are working under the Wikimedia foundation all over the world.
Revenue & Expense Model of Wikipedia
As per Annual reports of Wikipedia 2019, indicates that 93% of revenue share earns from Donations & contribution. Wikipedia annually operates a fund raising campaign; as per the annual report 2019 states that there has been increase in 23% of cash & investment balances from the last year. Second major part of revenue is “In Kind – service revenue”; these is services provided by Wikimedia foundation Free of Cost (FRC) basis to Wikipedia like bandwidth and hosting services, subscription services and pro bono legal services etc.
There is also 12.2% increase in operating expenses from FY 2017-18 is primarily in salaries and wages, donation processing expenses, professional Services, travel & conference expenses and operating expenses. Also, Professional Services expenses were higher as compared to last fiscal year (2017-18) due to our continued investments in our systems.
SWOT Analysis of Wikipedia
A. Strength
a. It is completely free providing access to information
b. Constantly updation within a hour.
c. Greater place to research.
d. Articles can be further trailed
B. Weakness
a. Anyone can create,edit or delete Wikipedia articles
b. Articles are work in progress means constantly changing
c. Sometimes articles are vandalized whether for fun, as hoax or because the subject is controversial.
d. Sometimes language is technical not able to relate to intended audience.
C. Opportunity
a. Holds a larger market share with its valueable contents.
b. Diversify the content on untouched areas by reason of language, culture or government controls.
D. Threat
a. Government censorship of Wikipedia
b. Denial of Service Attack from third party
c. Targeted hacking attacks against Wikipedia
d. Willful physical destruction
e. Natural Disaster
All steps & efforts has been taken to make this article error free & authentic even though if any inconsistencies or suggestion in respect to this kindly mail on naithani.ankit14@gmail.com
By Courtesy: Source :- https://wikimediafoundation.org/
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