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Are the tech greats willing to pay to use Wikipedia?

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You can’t pull the rope for too long, even when that rope is being pulled within the changing confines of the net. Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit that gives life to Wikipedia, the free and collaborative Encyclopedia, is about to launch, through a new company, a paid service. A way to re-establish the balance of power with the greats of technology after years of coexistence based on balances that are as strong in practice as they are fragile in economic theory.

The commercial project, which is expected to arrive in 2021, is called Wikimedia Enterprise and will provide companies and organizations with tools “that will make it easier to exploit and reuse Wikipedia data”. This is a message, not too veiled, to the Big Silicon Valley: Amazon, Apple – who use the voices of the encyclopedia also for their voice assistants – Facebook and company. First of all Google, with which relations are closely intertwined from the beginning. On the one hand, the search engine credits the Wikipedia source, on the other hand the source provides content on content. To the point that Mountain View, in 2007, even thought of making its own, of Wikipedia: it was called Knol and promised to share part of the advertising revenues with the authors. The sector newspaper TechCrunch immediately wondered if it was a step longer than the leg, and so it was: the project was wrecked to close its doors for good in 2012.

The new subsidiary, Wikimedia LLC, would already be dealing with the aforementioned greats and the deals could already be closed by June. “It is the first time that the Foundation recognizes commercial users on the same level as others – comments to Wired Us Lane Backer, who started the Enterprise project with a small team – We have never treated them as a user base”.

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Instead, this should happen in the future. The commercial branch of Wikimedia will offer its customers “snapshots”, that is, updated previews of the data that change on the platform, already optimized, so without the problems of any kind in formatting. It is a labor of labor that costs, so why not pay it, also adding a dedicated number, a sort of customer service, to guarantee speed in data delivery and technical defects.

Already in 2018, also thinking about how useful Wikipedia content was in the fight against online conspiracy, executive director Katherine Mahler had pulled a sound thrust to the tech giants (Google, in particular): “Wikipedia’s content is freely licensed to be reused by anyone and this is part of our mission […] At the same time, we encourage companies that use Wikimedia contents to return, in a spirit of sustainability ”.

The operation that the foundation is now trying to do is to put on the plate greater accuracy and a timeliness of updating data and sources that can appeal to those who live with information from the Encyclopedia. He is already aware that this new service will not become a source of sustenance for the machine, which continues to float with individual donations and various grants.

According to the emails that arrive on time, “Wikipedia remained accessible to all” thanks to the donations of 2% of readers around the world. However, in this way, the more than 51 million voices and about 300 languages ​​available are always on the verge of the effort and heartfelt requests of the founder Jimmy Wales and his associates. With Enterprise, Wikimedia aims to achieve greater stability.

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The history of digital has shown how difficult it is to change the paradigms already in place and consolidated in the habits of years, but the attempt, after twenty years, to recalibrate the contract between the free encyclopedia and those who convey the message, is a a step as courageous as it is crucial. The margins of the negotiation will only be discovered over time.

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