[Foundation-l] Fundraising & Networking updates

[simonpedia]

No, I think it should be a little more considered than that.
 
Look at (say) IBM’s page. Like most large companies, it will have someone
from their PR teams looking at Wikipedia articles, if not initiating them.
Although I see the need to have these types of companies (and products)
peppered throughout Wikipedias to complete it, it seems strange to many of
my friends in the media that there would not be a way for the foundation
and/or its community to be rewarded, as every other publisher would insist
upon. 
 
Advertising is dangerous amongst media which is ‘owned’ by contributors, as
we know. But (excuse my terminology) panhandling to contributors/users seems
a pretty hard road to plough, especially as they do most of the work. I’m
just mentioning one obvious response which my old friends in the media
business responded with when I asked for their ideas. They may only have
around 140 years experience between them, but it seemed a reasonable concept
for making projects sustainable as the Foundation begins to professionalize.

 
Personally, I’m surprised someone from the WMF wouldn’t have just gone to
one (or a few) of the big computer companies and said, “46m. x 2
international eyeballs/month (and rising). Give us (say) $5M for the one
year’s sponsorship (in cash or contra)”. What’s that? 2 x 30 sec, spots on
one country’s superbowl? Sooner or later, if you think like a private
publisher, this, or something like this, is about the only way forward. If
you think like a public one, it’s a bit different. HYPERLINK
"http://wikieducator.org/Talk:Community_networks#lqt_thread_973"http://wikie
ducator.org/Talk:Community_networks#lqt_thread_973
 
It’s funny from my friends’ perspective, cause the old joke is “content is
there to separate the ads”. WMF stuff is the antithesis of Fox-like content,
with the 8th(?)largest group of interactive sites in the world. Yet it seems
there is no understanding of what they are worth. Hopefully that will change
as Kul gets his feet under the desk. Regards, simon 
 
 
 
> I can't see how it could become problematic. By creating a company or
> product template all it does is allow a company to say "we support the
WMF",
> while knowing full well that they can't lie due the beady eyes and open
edit
> policy around here. It allows them an easy way to take from the
advertising
> account rather than the feeble donation account. It also gives their
> PR/advertising teams a reason to take interactive stuff more seriously
than
> they do with the overrated and costly broadcast media.
 
I can't see many companies paying just to get a "we support the WMF"
notice on the article about them. What I thought you were suggesting
was removing the logos from all company articles unless they pay us -
that's a very different thing, and completely fails NPOV, which is one
of our most important policies.

 


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