Meeting Notes: Dec 7 2009

I am new to this process, I would like to ask what is the relationship with orange being mentioned above, Is it country specific ? Also, I think its a little early to consider further expansions in language specific wikis and missions in developing countries before the foundation being financially stable itself, those goals are related to outreach more than any financial sustainability matters. I submitted the original proposal about an endowment based Wikipedia Fund, I estimated it would have to be around $120-150 million in light of further expansion and growth of the project with around 8% year on year increase in operations considered. For corporate donations, likely candidates would have to be evaluated and approached, but the donation amount have to be increased much higher. Google for example has been very helpful and instrumental in Wikipedia's success giving it search engine priority for years, they appear the first and likeliest candidates to be considered. A co-ordinated press release along with some promotion through other online venues for Large Corporate sponsors could generate positive PR and bring attention to the them as well as the cause. A banner like the current one present asking for donations could be permanent across Wikipedia, it could be utilized to thank benefactors through the year. A dedicated PR staff could organize fundraisers and increase knowledge about the the foundation and its cause as well as approach large sponsors.

I have a suggestion for Ads. we can consider a dedicated adspace on the corner of the main page alone(limited to the main page only) of either Wikipedia or Wikinews like a News paper and follow the Newspaper model, instead of being randomly generated by an ad service, it could be monthly or quarterly dedicated to a corporate benefactor. It would provide a tax write off as a donation as well as promotion to the benefactor, online websites and technology related brands seems like the ideal candidates but it can be considered like a dedicated space for ads like Newspaper, not just randomly generated links, Wikipedia can have more control over whats advertised. Sponsors can make other contributions besides funds like bandwidth or other hardware, Also for further reference - Large and successful blogs and website follow this method online.

Hi Theo: Regarding Orange: Orange has licensed the use of our trademark (as have a few other companies) and essentially co-branded content to deliver it through their portal for mobile phone users in a few countries. I'm not sure what the revenue stream is on this (and probably Veronique would prefer not to disclose that publicly, to avoid tainting future contract negotiations, but I'm totally speculating on that) but I get the feeling it's significant.

There's a backgrounder at this link.

Thanks Philippe, from the link it seems that its currently limited to 4 European markets. the first phase seems to be a widget and content integration for mobile platforms, I wonder if the foundation has similar agreements for North American markets, if not then maybe something worth pursuing if its significant enough. Anyway thanks for the link.