[WikiEN-l] BBC blog on WSJ study

[Durova]

On Fri, Nov 27, 2009 at 9:19 AM, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:

> 2009/11/27 Durova <nadezhda.durova at gmail.com>:
>
> > It's hard to understand the conjecture that Wikipedia ties in with those
> > plans.  If anything, Wikipedia's habit of referencing historic news
> articles
> > would help Mr. Murdoch's bottom line because it sends traffic to old
> > articles, which can generate advertising revenue from old news that would
> > otherwise be valueless.
>
>
> Dunno about Murdoch, but the NYT was making similar noises about
> Google and in fact claimed that Wikipedia was ripping them off by
> referencing their articles:
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/22/technology/internet/22wiki.html
>
> "So, in essence, many Wikipedia articles are another way that the work
> of news publications is quickly condensed and reused without
> compensation."
>
> This is more than a little rich considering Wikipedia is the
> number-one universal backgrounder for working journalists. A number of
> us shouted WHAT ON EARTH rather loudly:
>
>
> http://community.nytimes.com/comments/www.nytimes.com/2009/06/22/technology/internet/22wiki.html
>
> - but we've yet to hear a peep from Noam Cohen explaining just
> precisely what the hell he was playing at. I urge the next person he
> calls to question him closely on this one.
>
> Last year I discussed this with a Washington Post reporter.  His industry's
fundamentals have changed in ways that threaten its future.  The New York
Times has taken out multiple mortgages on its building; The Christian
Science Monitor ceased daily print issues earlier this year.

Wikipedians have been in the habit of treating reliable sources as a deep
well that we can tap.  The well is worried about running dry.

Wikipedia really is that big and influential.

When the typical business manager is losing money, that manager's response
will be efforts to protect existing income streams.  Businesses tend to be
much smarter about exploring new revenue opportunities when they are doing
well and think they can earn more money.  When they're losing money they
often act irrationally.  Bold and innovative ideas are less likely to get
implemented or even discussed because individuals take a political risk by
proposing them.  The reward for setting up any non-normative person for
layoff is that one's own neck is less likely to feel the axe in the short
run.

So that Washington Post reporter hadn't considered the advertising revenue
his newspaper was getting from Wikipedia's links to historic articles.  It
hadn't been discussed among his colleagues and nothing was being done to
optimize it.  He sounded intrigued and wanted to share it with his editors.
A few months later he was working for the Huffington Post.

-Durova

-- 
http://durova.blogspot.com/