Wikimedia is looking to turn Big Tech into paying Wikipedia customers with the creation of Wikimedia Enterprise.
Wikipedia is the premier online encyclopedia, crowd-sourced and free for anyone to use. Many of the biggest names in tech, including Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google rely on the encyclopedia.
Every couple of weeks, Wikipedia provides a snapshot of everything on the site to various tech companies, data the companies use in search and other products. The Wikimedia Foundation, responsible for Wikipedia, is now seeking to monetize that data feed.
Wikimedia Enterprise is a new product from the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit that operates Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects. Wikimedia Enterprise provides paid developer tools and services that make it easier for companies and organizations to consume and re-use Wikimedia data.
According to Wired, the free data stream will still be available to all users, but Wikimedia Enterprise will offer a data stream that is more up-to-date and compatible with the client company’s formats. Given that many of the big tech companies have entire teams dedicated to managing the incoming Wikipedia data, licensing it from Wikimedia Enterprise could save significant time and money.