Wikipedia as a brand
By Becky Lang
Wikipedia. When I think about it, I get what Freud called an “oceanic feeling,” a calming sense of connectedness and infinity. At other times, Wikipedia makes me laugh at how ridiculous the world is. Did you know that one of the most tampered with Wikipedia pages is the page for “homework?” Yep, found that out on Wikipedia.
The point is, when I think about my relationship to Wikipedia, I start to psychoanalyze myself and the world around me. Shit gets Freudian. Now, that’s good branding. If your service signifies something psychological, basic and complex, it probably has staying power.
What Wikipedia points to is the idea of a collective memory*, an organic archive of the world that changes with it.
But if you wanted to talk philosophy, you could just go read the Wikipedia for Monadology. What I’m here to do is look at Wikipedia as a brand.
The branding of Wikipedia
The basics: First of all, it has the important parts down. It signifies something hopeful about society. It provides a useful and necessary service, and it does so consistently. Finally, it is transparent about its goals and processes.
The looks: Wikipedia has always looked the same. Check off “consistency” on the Good Branding Checklist. With its white background, minimal accessorizing and slightly dated blue links, it has conveniently aligned itself with the visual brand language of Google. Bonus points! Its logo is distinct and uses a literary serif reminiscent of McSweeney’s cult of words and style. All in all, Wikipedia could stand to have a visual touch-up, but it is reliable and creates the proper associations.
Development: With WikiBooks and a series of other tutorials you could spend hours reading, Wikipedia has expanded its assets while remaining true to its general mission statement.
Culture: What happens behind the curtain is fairly obscured with Wikipedia. They lose a few points there. Its owner, Jimmy Wales, earned a saintly glow after swearing to keep it a non-profit in 2002. (Don’t worry, he’s rich enough. He’s on the panel at Hunch.com and makes money with the ad-supported Wikia network, which plays on geekery and has a strange, strange portal about Pop Tarts.) In response to worries that Wikipedia’s English-language page had slowed significantly in growth, Wales and co. decided to expand Wikipedia’s growth in non-English nations instead of adding fireworks to the English site. Globally-conscious, ethical, practical – I could swoon.
Fun fact – the Wikipedia co-founders met in a chat room about objectivism. Now if that isn’t fodder for a Thomas Pynchon novel, I don’t know what is.
Will it ever monetize?
I can’t help but wonder if Wikipedia will ever monetize, especially after “The Social Network” gracefully explained how Facebook managed to provide a free service that used perfect timing and user trust to crescendo into elegant monetization. A study done in 2006 estimated that Wikipedia was worth $580 million. Imagine what it has grown to now.
I think this question will become a real issue for Wikipedia once they start to supplement their content with user-created videos. Adding YouTube to pages could turn Wikipedia into a full-fledged archive of culture, but it would also introduce outsider advertising. At their hearts, Wikipedia and YouTube have similar missions, and it almost seems like an eventuality.
What do you think?
What does Wikipedia signify?
Should it ever monetize?
Will Wales’ Wikia network, which is currently one of the fifth most-used social media services, turn into moneybags?
Is collaboration the future of Internet culture, and how does that relate to marketing?
*Some might say it just plain signifies inaccuracy, but I don’t find that very compelling. I spent a lot of time in high school creating mean Wikipedia profiles of my friends and writing poems on the page for “Ice Cream.” All attempts were literally deleted in minutes. (I was never enough of a Bart Simpson to mess with the “homework” page though.)