Why We Made the State of Wikipedia

If you follow the JESS3 blog, you know that we love Wikipedia. We were fascinated by their open approach to fundraising; we donated because we care.

So what do you get a site that literally has everything for its 10th birthday? How about video “Fireworks”? (to borrow a phrase from TechCrunch commenter Sarwat Jamaluddin). What about a video that not only creates visual fireworks, but also helps tell your story — one that has multiple layers and is often not discussed?

And that’s what we did. In a collaborative effort to capture a historic moment in time for Wikipedia, we announced this morning “The State of Wikipedia,” a digital short aimed at teaching the layperson Wikipedia’s initial concept and consequent evolution into becoming one of the most visited web sites across the globe.

And what better person to tell the story than the man behind Wikipedia than Jimbo himself?

While loyal readers of this blog know well the circumstances in which Wikipedia was created, including its explosive early growth, the establishment of the Wikimedia Foundation and the project’s reliance on volunteers, we can’t ignore the truth that most people only know to visit Wikipedia if they need a quick and reliable digest on any given topic.

Launching alongside Wikipedia’s 10-year anniversary, the JESS3 team has produced a video that is a foundation to not only educate but also to spur the conversation around the future of Wikipedia.

JESS3 graciously worked closely with the Wikimedia Foundation and the Wikipedia community to produce “The State of Wikipedia” (the fourth installment in the “State of” series, which includes The State of the Internet, The State of Cloud Computing and The Future of Revenue).

After months of collaboration and the magical elements of production, we are now excited to be launching this piece of art and quite frankly, what we hope will become a time capsule as the future of the platform, community and articles continues to unfold.

When we originally began talking about the upcoming anniversary with longtime colleague + best bud William Beutler, best known for his authorship of The Wikipedian since early 2009 and as user:WWB to the community, it only made sense to collaborate directly with him as an Executive Producer for this digital short.

We look forward to see what the next 10 years hold for Wikipedia and how it will continue to help add contours, diversity and permanency to information the world over.

Note that The State of Wikipedia is a project released under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA). The puzzle globe logo is a trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation. This project received 100% of its funding from JESS3 and did not take any outside payment from the Wikimedia Foundation or others.

Written by:
Leslie Bradshaw | President & Co-founder of JESS3
Becca Colbaugh | VP of Client Services & Production of JESS3

What do you love about Wikipedia? What does its future hold?



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