• Newsweek, Tuesday, August 10, 2010 1:37 PM

Newsweek -- which knows something about troubled business models -- looks into those issues presently facing Wikipedia. Once held up as proof that unpaid contributors were an unstoppable, sustainable force, a recent drop-off in usership has led many question the future of the "wiki." Last spring, by Newsweek's estimate, Wikipedia "began to falter as a social movement." The issue has gotten dire, in fact, that Wikipedia is planning to employ recruiters for the first time ever.

So, what happens to the organic forces that powered the site for years? Some suggest that the site is virtually "complete," notes Newsweek. "Another suggests that aggressive editors and a tangle of anti-vandalism rules have scared off casual users." The bigger issue, as Newsweek points out: "Most people simply don't want to work for free." Wikipedia's new recruiting push will encourage students to write and edit entries as part of their coursework. To make it official, the Wikimedia Foundation has partnered with eight professors at schools, including George Washington and Princeton, to integrate the once frowned-upon research tool into public-policy curricula.

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