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Online collaborative encyclopaedia Wikipedia will turn 10 years old on Saturday with the non-profit foundation set to open the first non-US office in India this year.
The Wikimedia foundation launched the ten.wikipedia.org site which aims to assist the encyclopaedia’s millions of users to celebrate a decade of Wikipedia by pointing users to a network of worldwide user-run events. The site listied 352 events worldwide at time of writing.
With 410 million unique visitors, the foundation is next anticipating a milestone of one billion users which it hopes to reach in the next five years with key international launches such as India and Brazil.
Despite the astonishing popularity of the site it has remained a non-profit organisation which employes just 57 paid staff, funded by an annual drive for user contributions fronted by founder Jimmy Wales with ‘personal appeal’ banners appearing prominently throughout the site.
Wales told reporters in a phone conference that the foundation is looking to a future where the site contains yet further diversity in languages. "A few years ago about two thirds was written in English. Today less than 20 per cent is in English," he said.
