Jason Calacanis is always thinking, sometimes good thoughts, sometimes Digg clones. Today he is thinking about Wikipedia and believes that a single leader board ad on the Wikipedia site could bring in about $100 million a year, which inturn could be donated to any project Jimmy Wales and Wikipedia community decides.
Jason says he can get AOL, his employer to provide hosting and bandwidth. Either AOL, Google or anyone else could sell that one leaderboard. The issue of the ad on Wikipedia might elicit some strong emotions, but one ad and a world of change is not such a bad idea. I think the decision ultimately should reside with the Wikipedians. Somewhere in the story he mentions that Wikipedia, if it was a private company would be worth $5 billion. No Jason – it is priceless as it is. The ad-idea, too is actually priceless.
If the Wikipedians in their infinite wisdom allow this shrewd move, there is only one logical choice of advertiser — Google.