Wikipedia SWOT Analysis and Competitors
Wikipedia has a lot of strengths and a great field of opportunities; can be qualified as a Encyclopedia and as a Wiki, in both categories has competition and could be surpassed by a Chinese version of a free encyclo-pedia; Wikipedia as we will see encounters opportunities that are great but that could be a weakness too, the global nature of Wikipedia can make the community unmanageable and prone to corruption; Wikimedia counts with more than 30 chapters in more that 280 languages ; Wikimedia is part of a global network of individuals, organizations, chapters, clubs and communities and all work together to maintain Wikipedia .
Wikipedia has many competitors, many are “dead” but many others are making it’s own way in the knowledge field. Sites like Veropedia and Citizendium were created with the same objectives of globalize and share the knowledge, but with few differences like the information should be enhanced by experts, these models have been less successful. Veropedia was created in October 2007 and shut down in January 2009, their principals were very much like the Nupedia project, the idea was to enhance articles coming from Wik-ipedia and to fill the Veropedia servers with more accurate information, its revenue would come from user donations but at the end the project was supported exclusively by its creators ; as of today the Veropedia project has disappeared and its web page is hosting spam.
Citizendium is an online wiki based encyclopedia as well, it was launch in 2006, and its base is like the one from Nupedia; Citizendium’s goal is to create a “free, comprehensive, and reliable repository of structured knowledge.” but with certain rules; Citizendium only accepts registered users to edit information, anonymous editors are not allowed, the editor administrators need to have a bachelor degree and 25 years of age or older. The idea behind Citizendium is to achieve free knowledge but with responsibility ; as of July 2011, it had 15,920 articles, of which 155 had achieved editorial approval.
Scholarpedia is an online wiki based encyclopedia but managed by experts, “is a peer-reviewed open-access encyclopedia written by scholars from all around the world” . The encyclopedia uses the wiki system, and users can edit the articles, but a team of contributors reviews the modifications; if the modifications are accepted then the article will be published and the user can be part of the team of contributors. To make intellectual contributions to Scholarpedia, the user has to be an expert in his/her field; in addition other experts will validate the user. As for December 2010, the encyclopedia has 671 articles and 1700 more in progress.
Because Wikipedia is denominated an encyclopedia and a Wiki, we can point as a direct competitor Encyclopedia Britannica and competitor in a globalized market with The Baidu Encyclopedia (A Chinese Encyclopedia). Encyclopedia Britannica is a competitor in the amount of knowledge that contains and the accuracy of its articles ; this has been refuted in articles like: Faith-Based Encyclopedia by Robert McHenry ; Encyclopedia Britannica’s structure is about “100 full-time editors and more than 4,000 expert contributors” . “Britannica's Editorial Board of Advisors—the Nobel laureates and Pulitzer Prize winners, the leading scholars, writers, artists, public servants, and activists who are at the top of their fields” .
The Baidu Encyclopedia is the Chinese version of Wikipedia, which is blocked in China (not the English version); Baidupedia was created as a resource to handle the Chinese information from inside China . It was a national effort for keeping all the Chinese information in Chinese language accurate but handled by the government; Baidu is a search engine and “Like Baidu itself, the encyclopedia is heavily self-censored in line with government regulations” is bigger than the Chinese Wikipedia that has as of February of 2012, “398.000+ articles” , Baidupedia has as of February 2012, “4.3 million articles more than the English Wikipedia” that counts with 3.861.000 articles.

Wikipedia Strengths:
Global coverage and free access: Wikipedia has editions in more than 270 languages, with more than 82.000 contributors . Its quantity of data is close to 20 million articles; these statistics could make Wikipedia the biggest free encyclopedia ever to exist, with free access and open to be edited by everybody. This statistic firmly supports its vision that information should be free and global . Wikimedia Foundation counts with 30 chapters covering Europe, Asia and South America, these groups help Wikipedia to grow in knowledge and in funds.
Users Loyalty: Wikipedia is used by more than 400 million people per month, it’s the 6th site most visited in the world, with 2.108.889 of sites linking in; and is one of the most trusted brands in the Internet.
Lack of bias, free consensus and trust: Wikipedia uses the massive access of people to different topics to ensure that the articles are developed with out bias and with massive consensus. Great quantity of the content is developed and modified always looking for neutral points of view; the articles are reviewed and modified. Poor and biased articles are often eliminated .
Independence. Wikipedia can ensure its independence because it does not receive any donations from just one source. Wikimedia works hardly to receive financial resources from many sources, this approach ensures that Wikipedia operations are always aligned with the lack of bias and free consensus premises.
Wikipedia Weaknesses:
Increase of technological resources: Because Wikipedia counts with global coverage and is one of the most visited sites in the world the foundation is in need of enhancing the technological resources. As Wikipedia founder expresses, the foundation behind Wikipedia has about 679 Servers that in comparison with the amount of servers that is calculated Google has that is about 900.000 is in a very week position. In addition the development of good apps for mobile devices with rich interface, as of March 2012 the encyclopedia counts just with one iPhone app with low quality.
Accuracy of data: Because anyone can edit Wikipedia, global access to the system, and because the system allows anonymous data modification, accuracy and integrity of Wikipedia is always in discussion . The encyclopedia can be used to publish personal interests, points of view that enclose cultures in narrow ideas; can be a place where problematic users with shady purposes would like to publish its own material. The material that is consigned in the encyclopedia may not be complete, or pieces of articles can be removed, which can be considered like vandalism. In general the security and accuracy of the data is always at stake.
Fundraising: Fundraising has always been a big part of Wikipedia; great part of this is because without donations the encyclopedia would not exist. All the money that is donated around the word is used to maintain the technical infrastructure, invested to grow the geographical reach of the encyclopedia, to research and invest in new ways for the encyclopedia to reach people, new markets, to integrate new technologies in to the actual system. As expressed by Wikimedia foundation in its 2011-2012 Annual plan the fundraising strategy has been changed during the years; the best year registered until now is 2010, they raised $15 million in 50 days and a total of $21.5 million with all the donations that came from the different chapters . They aim for the general community and not only the big companies. They got better results using just a personal appeal from its founder that using guilty phrases or other kind of intellectual appeals . But again in their annual report they express a concern in the over utilization of the Jimmy Wells persona. The foundation is aware of the over exposure of Jimmy Wales on the media, and the consequences of it that could result in less donations.
Global coverage and chapters: Wikimedia Foundation counts with chapters that support the objectives of the foundation, they develop activities to add diversity to the Wikipedia community, they campaign for the access to free knowledge, organize activities to raise funds for Wikimedia projects, and develop activities to support their own chapters. But in the annual report 2011-2012 risk analysis the foundation expresses concerns about tension between the chapters; the foundation detected that these tensions could be a result of tighter financial controls, then the issues are distracting the chapter from work.
Wikipedia credibility and community acceptance: During the years the encyclopedia’s credibility and accuracy has been a topic of concern for the academic community, journalistic and in general the public. Cases like “”The death of former Enron Corp. chief Ken Lay” Reuters and Wikipedia encounter confusion and credibility issues; facts found in Wikipedia were put there by Reuters journalists but at the end, the data was inaccurate and Reuters didn’t accept its own fault , and studies from Proceedings of the Seventh In-ternational Conference on Conceptions of Library and Information Science— in the study "Unity in diversity" An inside view: credibility in Wikipedia from the perspective of editors , the study reveals how editors edit Wikipedia articles, the bases and sources to make modifications and how often they study the issues and facts in depth related with the article they edit. The study conclusion is a deep concern about the research methods, authoritative sources, and the quality of information product of that process.

Wikipedia Opportunities:
Increase Global reach in countries like India, South America including Brazil: As we saw in the Strengths section Wikipedia has a great quality that is Global reach. That is why the encyclopedia is in a great position; one of Wikipedia’s purposes is to get to people that don’t have access to education and knowledge the opportunity to access them. The Wikipedia expansion in countries in the southern hemisphere with continuous growth in the Internet access should be one of the most important objectives. Companies like Baidu from China are starting to lay bases in countries like Brazil with products that mimic Wikipedia .
Enhancing the technological infrastructure: With just few hundreds of servers Wikipedia is in a position where this could be a threat but an opportunity too. Its well-known Wikipedia independence from any entity or company but because of the same principal, Wikipedia could solicit donations not only in money but also in technology resources.
Raise quality: By using it’s global reach Wikipedia can use partnerships with universities, networks of experts and scientific and cultural institutions to improve the quality of articles. The chapters can use the good name of Wikipedia to push the edition activities and different projects in educative institutions that speak different languages that are not as documented like African, Indian, Asiatic and other international languages and dialects spoken by minorities.
Research a way of getting into the public using the media without loosing the objectivity and independence
Wikipedia Threats:
Financial Management: The financial management in the foundation sometimes gets confusing because all chapters are responsible for raising funds for their own operations and in addition for the foundation. The mismanagement of the money leads to chapter tensions and there could be cases where funds are diverted to purposes non related with the foundation objectives. “The new flood of money into chapters and the risks it poses, combined with lack of clarity around roles-and responsibilities between the Wikimedia Foundation and the chapters, is resulting in ongoing and time consuming negotiations between the Wikimedia Founda-tion and chapters, as well as escalating tensions. This is distracting the movement from program work.”
Legal risks because the movement is establishing international chapters or is confronting new laws: With chapters all around the world, in each country the law works different in areas like internet, communication, copy rights, access to information and legality to publish it. Even with internal laws like the renowned SOPA that are at stake, Wikipedia needed to put its own word in the middle and raise its voice for all that are in favor of speech and media freedom.
Decline in the general number of editors: In the late years Wikipedia have found the number of active editors has decreased by the thousands. If the encyclopedia doesn’t renew the idea of editing and updating information on the site, all the quality of the information could be even more compromised.