Yes, so soon after Jimmy Wales responded to his two previous advertising proposals for Wikipedia, Jason Calacanis has struck again. His new suggestion? That Wikipedia raise funds in the same manner as Mozilla, by placing a Google “Search the Web” box in the sidebar, or at the top of pages.
The idea of a Google search tool hasn’t gained much more acceptance than his previous two, and probably not just because it isn’t a wise idea. His last two posts took the moral high ground with rapier-like wit and sophistication:
Here are my proposals so far:
Day One: Add one, non-graphical leaderboard to the Wikipedia.
Response: Die, die capitalist marketing freak—Wikipedia can never have ads or it loses all credibility—die, die capitalist marketing freak, you suck… die, die, die!
Uh-huh. Way to win over your critics, Jason.
It’s alright, though: I think I can see a way to ease the situation, and perhaps find a reasonable middle ground. Looking at Calacanis’ blog, I see a prodigious amount of space devoted just to advertising - hell, the ads for thisnext.com extend far below the actual text of the page. With all this attention recently, Calacanis must be making a dime or two from all of that advertising.
So why not donate some of it to Wikipedia?
