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April 07, 2005 08:01 AM US Eastern Timezone

Wikimedia Foundation Announces Corporate Support of Wikipedia from Yahoo! Search; Helps Allow the Organization to Run Wikipedia Independently

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. & SUNNYVALE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 7, 2005--Wikimedia Foundation, a non-profit organization that develops and maintains free open content for the public, and Yahoo! Search, a leading global search engine, today announced that Yahoo! Search will dedicate hardware and resources to support Wikipedia, a community based encyclopedia written and edited by people from around the world. The contribution is the most significant dedication made to date to the Wikimedia Foundation by a corporate sponsor and is essential to furthering their global growth.

In addition, Wikipedia content will become available to hundreds of millions of users worldwide through Yahoo! Search via shortcuts that are automatically displayed above the relevant search results (http://tools.search.yahoo.com/shortcuts/). Yahoo! will begin making Wikipedia content available via shortcuts in the U.S., select European, Asian, and Latin American properties over the next several weeks.

"Yahoo! Search's support and vast user base will provide critical material aid and global reach for Wikipedia," said Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikimedia Foundation. "Yahoo! has been Wikipedia's longest-standing corporate supporter and with this dedication of resources we will be able to offer Wikipedia content to a growing worldwide audience, while maintaining full flexibility in our ability to expand relationships and freely distribute our works."

Since its launch in 2001, the popularity and support for Wikipedia has continued to grow. Today Wikipedia is one of the 100 most visited Web sites worldwide, according to Alexa Internet Traffic Rankings, 2005.

"Wikipedia is one of the most recognized community-generated resources of its kind and it demonstrates the ability to create and manage a high quality content experience," said David Mandelbrot, vice president of search content at Yahoo!. "Supporting the expansion of this free service aligns with our objective to help people search for and use online content, while also encouraging the growth of communities where people can share and expand upon the growing collection of information on the Web."

About Wikimedia Foundation

The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. is an international non-profit organization dedicated to encouraging the growth, development and distribution of free, multilingual content, and to providing the full content of these wiki-based projects to the public free of charge. Wikimedia relies on public donations to meet its goal of providing free knowledge to every person in the world.

About Yahoo!

Yahoo! Inc. is the No. 1 Internet brand globally and the most trafficked Internet destination worldwide. Yahoo! provides online products and services essential to consumers' lives, and offers a full range of tools and marketing solutions for businesses to connect with Internet users around the world. Yahoo! is headquartered in Sunnyvale, Calif. Contacts Yahoo! Inc. Aaron Ferstman, 408-349-4902 aaronf@yahoo-inc.com or Wikimedia Foundation Jimmy Wales, 727-231-0101