Internet Is Not Just About Making Money

by Shanker Bakshi on February 17, 2009

You probably would like to kill me for this, Niche of this blog is “Make Money Online” but today I’m telling you stories about two passionate web masters, who have earned a lot of name fame and respect in web and technology world but never intended to make huge money out it. These stories are not sort of “How I made – - – - – -$ in four months” these stories tells us how couple of ordinary guys come up with some extra ordinary achievements in current web 2.0 and that too for the sake of their passion and love for their work and not at all to pull dollars from somebody’s pockets and building lavishly designed offices. These two guys are;

Mr Jimmy Wales -Founder of Wikipedia.org
Mr. Craig Newmark -Founder of Craigslist.org

Wikipedia

Have you ever seen and advertisement sort of thing flashing at Wikipedia.org, yes you haven’t seen any, that’s because Wikipedia, the world Largest on line Encyclopedia dose not run any business model. Wikipedia.org has the total number of monthly unique visitors 42,880,000 and if Mr Wales he could earn millions of bucks by just placing a single Google AdSense Ad Inventory.

Jimmy Wales started it all in year 2001 which now has 12 millions articles written by Wikipedia volunteers around the world and still counting. Brainchild of Jimmy is still growing everyday in this cut throat competitive World Wide Web.

Let me tell you how Wikipedia Works

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia written collaboratively by many of its readers. Many people are constantly improving Wikipedia, making thousands of changes per hour, all of which are recorded on article histories and recent changes. Inappropriate changes are usually removed quickly, and repeat offenders can be blocked from editing. Anyone can edit almost any page, whether content, grammar or formatting. So it’s a website created by one man Jimmy Wales and then developed by contribution of thousands of contributors from around the world.

Craigslist

Craigslist.org is an Online Classified Network and it is so big that it has almost die down big news papers classified ad business. You need job, house or pet just search for your term in Craigslist and you will find it right in there. And since these classified are free you can always add up your listing.

Craig Newmark manages it from a tiny home office in San Francisco. Craig Build this site to help community, the initial idea was to list local event which eventually build up later on as the biggest ever Online Classified ad Network.

Both Craig and Jimmy advocate that internet was never made to make money. The communication through internet should always be free. Instead of become Internet Millionaire Mogul these guys keep on working on their project and building a free communication system. Both has get many times some really huge tempting buyout price, they could have sell their projects and buy an island somewhere but then there are always few people who set examples -Its not all about money HONEY.

Jimmy Wales Founder of Wikipedia

Craig Newmark Founder of Craigslist.org

Craigslist headquarters in San Francisco's Sunset District

Tagged as: Blogging Resource, Make Money Online

{ 17 comments… read them below or add one }

HOBO(nickname) February 18, 2009 at 3:28 am

I Salute !
That is what I was trying to say many times.
Life is a journey. And The message should be – “Shakehands”
Remember : Money is a paper value created in mind.
Do not create the value in numbers. Create the value in values.
Serving people one of the best values.
And Bill Gates(microsoft) – another person I like most.
Cheers !!!

Shanker Bakshi February 18, 2009 at 2:20 pm: amazing – I wish you could shake hands with the whole world one day and beat the Gates

Reply

Best CSS Gallery February 18, 2009 at 12:20 pm

Very inspiring story. Do you think they regretted their projects are non-profit at least once? A tiny bit?

zazo February 18, 2009 at 3:11 pm

Thanks for this inspiring post, but its all depend upon the individual’s priorities, some needs money first and some needs fame. We especially, professionals in web business knows what wikipidea and craigslist are doing and what they are getting?, but not those end users. Still, such real examples are very helpful and encouraging.
There is lot more, than money in this world.

ZK@internet Marketing Blog February 19, 2009 at 6:27 pm

It depends on what you want to achieve , people have made great innovations without the thought of monetising it.

The thrill was not money , it was success and the persuit to be successful

Marlene February 19, 2009 at 10:14 pm

Those people are making the most of Internet. They don’t earn bucks but they’re popular enough to earn honors.

Marketing Business Review February 20, 2009 at 3:55 am

They are indeed very respectable Guys. They have manage to succeed without earning money. Pardon me, but since now I am a marketer, this stats “42,880,000 uniques” make wonder what can you do or me with that traffic in our blogs. Wow, they are truly clever guys.

Marisha Adams February 20, 2009 at 7:51 pm

I think a lot of people want to earn money online, but there are some people who just blog and set up websites because they WANT to. Sometimes, when you have a real passion for something, good things can happen without you even wanting them to! Good for them! They didn’t set out to make millions.. just lucky they have!

Classifieds February 21, 2009 at 2:05 pm

These are truly extraordinary sites, that if they wanted to could make much more than they currently do. But they do it for the services they give to their users not for the money, but they still do make money on some of their things.

Abhishek February 23, 2009 at 1:52 pm

wikipedia and craiglist got lots of donation boss !!

Odzyskiwanie Danych March 2, 2009 at 8:50 am

It’s nice to know that there are people out there who do stuff for other reasons than money. I understand why the wikipedia guy won’t sell out – it’s kind of the whole point of Wikipedia. I’m surprised that Craig hasn’t sold craigslist yet – I feel like this site will not last more than 2-3 more years before being replaced by a better site – if I were him I’d sell it in a heartbeat while it’s still worth something.

Nihar March 16, 2009 at 9:30 am