The not for profit organization that is running Wikipedia has launched its annual appeal for donations. This year, the amount sought is $6 million to cover the volunteer-enabled website costs. This is 3 times as much as the group raised last year.

This is the first time the San Francisco based organization has set an explicit financial goal.

Wikipedia is one of the highest visited websites on the Internet. It is free to use, without using any ads, and that is why it has to count on donations to keep its growing operations. The appeal for donations is advertised on the website with the use of banners which visitors can click on to donate.

The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation has so far donated the highest amount, $1 million, and about one third of the goal has been collected so far in total.

Although the economy is experiencing a slowdown trend, Wikipedia is counting on its worldwide appeal to allow it to reach its financial fund raising goal before the January 15th deadline.

The problem with the Internet is that any whacko with a connection gets to throw out his/her opinion, however wrong it may be. The Internet’s saving grace is that other whackoes can point out just how wrong the first whacko is.

Charlie Barratt wrote an article over at GamesRadar in which he points out that Wikipedia is nothing more than a haven for nerds. Sure, there may be millions of articles, but they are all about nerdy things. Wikipedia lacks real meat.

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There’s an interesting article over at ZDNet UK. The idea is that people don’t need to go to a search engine to find what they need. If they want a review of a product, they will go to Amazon or CNET. If they want to find out about a place or person, they will head straight to Wikipedia. If they want something funny or interesting, they’ll got to YouTube or Digg.

I find myself doing this. Instead of going to Google (that will return 6 million pages), I will often head straight to Wikipedia. I’m not saying I don’t use Google, but I am finding that I use it less. If I’m looking for a review of a product, Google is simply unusable. Instead, I’ll go to any number of sites that I have found useful (and bookmarked), to find that information.

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I grew up with the Webster dictionary as my guide to defining words. I remember homework assignments that started with “Webster defines…” followed by the definition of some term and a follow up question on which I would need to write a paper. Another classic use of Webster was at church. Someone preaching on love? The easiest way to begin is by stating “Webster defines love as…” and then moving on to a more eloquent expansion on the basic definition.

During this past month, both of these examples came back to me, except this time Webster was replaced by Wikipedia.

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