Have Laptop Will Travel

We all knew it was just a matter of time. The almighty dollar always wins out in the end, no matter how principled an organization might seem to be.

Just look at the Catholic Encyclopedia. It’s one of the most well-respected sources of information in the world. But when you open up each of their entries, what do you see? A big ugly Google Ad staring you right in the face. It’s not subtle either.

Now if you had asked me 7 years ago which organizations on the web might avoid the temptation to uglify in the name of of revenue, I probably could have only listed a handful of sites. In December of 2006 there was really only one left on my list: Wikipedia.

But despite it’s unwillingness to uglify thus far, I’ve had an uneasy feeling in my stomach for some time, suspecting that eventually, Wikipedia too, would give in. Call me jaded or whatever. But the cancerous spread of uglification in the name of revenue has reached to the far corners of the web, and I couldn’t help but suspect that Wikipedia be taken in as well.

So it came as no surprise when Jimmy Wales recently hinted at Wikipedia’s move towards a revenue model, in the name of charity!!! According to Reuters in an article entitledWikipedia founder mulls revenue options:

Wikipedia … could veer from its no advertising policy in the future to raise cash for charity.

Now, we should be clear that Jimmy Wales tries to underplay this development by emphasizing “for charity” and by suggesting that they may first try to monetize in non-advertisement via quizzes and trivia games. But let’s not mince words here. This is Wikipedia clearly setting the table for advertisement uglification. After all, do quizzes and trivia games really have the potential to raise sizable amounts of revenue for charity? If Jimmy really wants to help the kids in Africa, as he says, then just plop some AdSense down and you’ll have millions within days.

We know you’re going to do it Wikipedia. Everyone else has.

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