02/23/10
Google donates $2 million to help keep Wikipedia online
The next time a user performs a Wikipedia search for Google they may see an addition to the company's entry highlighting its philanthropic efforts toward Wikipedia.
Google has recently given a $2 million grant to support Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia that contains more than 14 million articles contributed by more than 100,000 volunteers.
The money will be used by Wikipedia's parent organization, Wikimedia, to buy more computer infrastructure, including bandwidth, servers and routers to support Wikipedia's “global traffic and capacity demands,” Wikimedia said.
“We are very pleased and grateful. This is a wonderful gift, and we celebrate it as recognition of the long-term alignment and friendship between Google and Wikimedia,” said Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia founder. “Both organizations are committed to bringing high quality information to hundreds of millions of individuals every day, and to making the Internet better for everyone.”
While this was Google's first gift to Wikimedia, the two companies have a long-standing relationship, including a recent partnership to support translation of Wikipedia content into “key languages with relatively small Wikipedia editions.”
Wikimedia said that it received $8 million from individuals during its 2009 – 2010 campaign that ended in January.
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