Wikimedia Foundation and Answers.com announce partnership

October 21, 2005

The Wikimedia Foundation, the mother organization of the popular Wikipedia encyclopedia, and Answers.com, a search engine company, announced a new partnership. This partnership will lead to the development of a special edition of Answers.com's 1-Click Answers tool, called 1-Click Answers, Wikipedia Edition. The advertising revenues from this software will be split with the Wikimedia Foundation. It will be linked from the English Wikipedia Tools page for a 60 day trial beginning in 2006.

Jimmy Wales, president of the Wikimedia Foundation, said he was "pleased to partner with Answers.com, encouraging software that improves access to Wikipedia." Bob Rosenschein, Answers.com's founder and CEO, told the media that Wikipedia is "the most dynamic of over 120 content sources found in Answers.com".

The Wikipedia community is actively discussing the partnership. "One of the potential problems with encouraging software-based and third party uses of Wikipedia's content is that it could divert people from the site," one user remarked.