Wikipedia Plea: e-begging or e-marketing?
Should we use our user base to cover costs?
If ever there was an example of why organisations, companies and / or individuals should stretch their digital reach to every corner of the Internet, is the news story of Wikipedia running into financial trouble and turning to their users for assistance.
For those that haven’t heard of the story, Wikipedia required (and have now obtained) $6m for running costs, and was on course to miss that target, saved only by a personal plee from its founder Jimmy Wales
For me, it raised the big issue of drawing on your user base to bail out a company in financial difficulty, much like the way a public company would ask its shareholders for help when it gets in to trouble. I’d like to ask the question, is this fair? Is it OK to beg online? Can anyone do it? and should we accept it? Should I do it?
Many of our training sessions discuss and emphasise the importance of connecting with your audience, but we rarely go into depth regarding the whys of doing so. We stress how the more people you know, the more things you can do, and also how conversation is good and building your online community is as important as your offline community.
But once we have an audience, is it fair and our choice what we do with it / them? And if we do decide to pull at the crowd resources for whatever reason, is it also fair for the ‘cloud morality’ to shoot us down if we decide to do so?
An example would help here…
I’ve seen YouTube vloggers with a couple thousand subscribers, beg for assistance to fund a $3000 holiday to work with the underprivileged in South America, and the full sum be reached within a week. Ask yourself is that OK? Because it happened very easily.
Another example is the YouTube lovable big mouth boh3m3 seeking help from his user base to move to California (or somewhere) to help get out of his rut and kick start his life back in the direction he knows he needed. Ask yourself is that OK? Did it work? You’re thinking, you bet it did. No sooner did the begging video go up, did it come back down again after reaching his financial target. But not after getting a severe flaming by a percentage of his fan base for doing so.
And we could argue all day about the ethics of digital begging and abusing your power as a ‘celebrity’ to rake in cash from your loyal fans, but isn’t that just what Wikipedia have done? What’s the difference between the worlds biggest free encyclopedia asking for your money and a kid with a web cam on YouTube? None in my book. The only difference I can see is boh3m3′s plee was for personal benefit whilst Wiki-Jimmy’s was on behalf of a non-profit service provider.
Now don’t think that e-begging / e-marketing of this nature is easy. You’ll probably only receive the benefit from 1% of your user base, and that will only happen at all if your plee hits the emotional spot of those that care enough about your business / project.
On another level, I just need to take a look at myself and I see that I’ve tapped up digital ‘mates’ I’ve never met to help me out when the need arose – and they all have come through with generosity.
I guess its about the ‘need’ and ‘want’. If the ‘need’ is genuine enough and the ‘want’ (in whatever form) is valued by the observer, then people dig deep to help out. Also don’t underestimate the power of people’s compassion and enthusiasm to ‘want’ to be part of the next big idea. Just throw it out there, be genuine, passionate and determined – it’ll rub off on others in more ways than you think.
I love hearing stories of people pulling in the resources, goodwill and communication of invisible friends from around the world to come to the rescue when needed.
How about you? Have you ever called upon people you’ve never met to help you out? Have you ever done or thought about doing ‘a Wikipedia’? Or considered dropping a ‘donate’ button on your web page for a need that is greater than you can obtain alone? However big or small, leave a comment, we’d love to hear about it.
January 12th, 2009
Great post and something that really chimes with me at the moment. The blog I run, Created in Birmingham, is up for a ‘Best UK Blog’ award and over the past week I’ve been asking people for votes.
That site has a fantastic, supportive community around it and they’ve responded to a degree I never expected – although it serves a reasonably small community we’re currently leading the poll. I need to put down some more considered thoughts about this, but here’s a tangible sense of ownership in the blog by its readers – a win for the site would be a win for that community.
Anyway, thanks, I can see myself returning to read this post again later.
January 12th, 2009
I agree that there is no difference between the case of Wikipedia and of the YouTube user boh3m3.
I would go further than you – while Wikipedia is a non-profit service provider, Jimmy Wales HAS personally benefitted from the profile he’s received, in terms of paid speaking engagements and other ancillary work. So there really is no difference.
Out of the crowds who chipped in, I can only do a tiny straw poll… Typically people I know are giving $10 or $20 which is a good deal for such a tremendous service.
As for Jimmy Wales, I think he’s a hero and deserves the perks. Whatever any critics might say is somewhat less relevant – now that people have voted with their wallets.
I’d like to see how this breaks down by age. What’s the average age of people giving versus user age? Is it true that younger people are now over-accustomed to getting things for free?
I don’t understand what you mean here:
Are you talking about financial help? Or just advice, tips, etc?
January 12th, 2009
@Carl – yes, I was refering to ‘any’ need, be it financial or otherwise. Personally I have never sought after money, from people I hardly know and perhaps only communicate with online. I think its worth asking ourselves (now, before we need it) how we view our needs at a time of (somewhat) desperation, and which has the more value. A personal request for skills from a friend is common and acceptable, but often worth way way more than a monetary donation of $20. Could it be that asking for money is easy and effortless? and therefore people resent those that request it – probably because they know how easily money will be given!
I guess the substance (which I got distracted) of this post, is the importance of building your user base, something that many of us have no issue with – however beyond the stats and feel good factor, we all know that deep down converting clicks to cash in some way, is the end game for many of us.