Wikipedia and Consumerist: Shifting Models for 2009?
Monday, January 5, 2009
Steve Smith

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Two stories over the holidays concerning Gawker Media’s The Consumerist blog and Wikipedia underscore the potential for new models to emerge from tough times. As reported in min here, Consumer Union purchased the popular blog Consumerist from Gawker Media and in so doing will shift from an ad supported model to ConsumerReports.org’s ad free policy. Apparently, Gawker head Nick Denton is pruning his catalog of blogs as he expects a radical downturn in online advertising in 2009. He has already made layoffs. More to the point, Consumer Union is going against the recent trend to seek ad support for just about everything and anything a media company does. In fact, as the Consumerist.com blog is already under Consumer Union’s Consumer Media LLC subsidiary and carries no ads of any kind right now. CU will keep The Consumerist free but will run house ads instead of third party banners, according to reports. The company hopes to bring a younger demographic into the fold for its successful paid online services. For a decade now, ConsumerReports.org has been one of the few consumer-side successes with the paid online model. This is an interesting turn of models. We have an ad-driven new media company selling one of its brands to an old media fee-driven company, which will use the new entity as a free come-on for new customers.

Also bending old models is Wikipedia, which announced today that its recent fund-raising drive amassed $6.2 million in donations from 125,000 givers worldwide. A personal appeal for donation bys Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales on December 23 helped add 50,000 contributors to the effort in the next eight days and filled a $2 million funding gap. This may be one of the best examples in Web history of users agreeing to the value a free and advertising-free service provides the online community and accepting an alternative means for funding it.

Both The Consumerist and Wikipedia models suggest how a combination of tougher times and the increased legitimacy of digital delivery may result in more sustainable online models in the future. As people turn to the Web from other media, they may also start acknowledging the cash value of the content they find and rely on here. Ultimately, this increased respect for digital media, its obvious indispensability, re-opens the case for paid models. Look for more experiments in hybrid business models in 2009 as both the economy demands it and users grow to accept it.

If you have breaking news to share please contact Steve Smith at ssmith@accessintel.com

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COMMENTS

1.

What about Treehoo.com the environmental friendly webportal?

Posted by Erick on Monday, January 5, 2009 @ 10:40 AM

2.

hmmm. wikipedia may have got money this year but for how much longer? think french sell posters. google http://blog.heebie.co.uk/wikipedia-fundraising-real-truth

Posted by Simon on Monday, January 5, 2009 @ 02:51 PM

3.

That Valleywag had to run a complete fabrication about Wikipedia to get page hits yesterday shows that Gawker is on the skids.

Posted by David Gerard on Monday, January 5, 2009 @ 07:26 PM

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