Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2010-04-26/News and notes

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Wikipedia on transit

Advertisements for Wikipedia began appearing on Berlin subways last week, in a project run by Wikimedia Germany. According to Catrin Schoneville, press contact for Wikimedia Deutschland, the ads were produced by TV production company Berliner Fenster GmbH, who were contacted by Wikimedia volunteer Juliana da Costa. The ads feature short "did you know" clips and information about Wikimedia. There spots are showing on 3768 double screens in 1106 wagons, approximately 8 spots per hour, with an average of 1.5 million viewers per day. The advertisements are worth approximately 150.000 €/month. Wikimedia Deutschland hopes to expand the program to more cities' subways as well.

Some pictures of the ads can be found on Commons.

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26 April 2010 (all comments)

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I will admit, with much embarrassment, that my heart stopped for a second when I saw the headline "Wikipedia advertising (and more!)" ALI ^{nom nom} 16:33, 27 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I must admit, mine did as well. Can someone clarify the purpose of these? --Ouro (blah blah) 17:08, 27 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

As a Signposter (that sounded way to much like composter), we create article titles to grab reader's attention and get them to read the story. In newspapers around the globe, the same hype system works quite well.--mono^{National Pretzel Day} 04:19, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

My error. I meant - why were the advertisements ordered in the first place. What is their purpose? Sorry for the mix-up! --Ouro (blah blah) 06:35, 1 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe the Foundation has more money than they know what to do with? Naw, that couldn't be it. -- llywrch (talk) 05:13, 4 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Are the subway and the production company doing this gratis, or does Wikimedia Deutschland have money to burn? ~ Ningauble (talk) 18:50, 27 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Unless the advertisements are geared toward attracting donations or new contributors, I really don't see the point. Don't we already get like 80 bazillion hits per minute? --Cryptic C62 · Talk 18:14, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I like the idea of Wikipedia advertising, but can't imagine that "we" would pay for it. Maybe this is a way for the transit system to attract readers to its other ads: having something identifiable, interesting, and essentially free might be worth it to them. Smallbones (talk) 01:17, 29 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think they're free (if I understand Google's translation correctly). 160.39.221.164 (talk) 06:44, 4 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It should be noted that there was apparently only a test run of the Wikipedia subway "ads", and the project hasn't progressed further since April, according to this recent posting on the mailing list of the German chapter. Regards, HaeB (talk) 20:55, 5 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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