This page links to data and analysis regarding reach in the various Wikimedia projects. This collection of data and analysis will serve as a starting point for identifying how Wikimedia can increase the number of users of Wikimedia projects.

For purposes of this process, expanding reach and increasing use are defined as increasing the number of people who read articles on Wikimedia projects. Expanding reach does not include analysis related to increasing the participation of people in creating and editing articles on Wikimedia projects. (For more on participants, please see Participation.)


Wikimedia users

Analysis related to understanding who is currently using Wikimedia and why

Wikimedia nonusers

This section contains analysis to understand both the barriers that exist to accessing Wikimedia projects and understanding why people who have access to Wikimedia projects choose not to use them.

Regional analysis

This section contains analysis about the languages and Wikipedia projects of various geographic regions.


See Wikimedia market analysis for an overview. Specific regions include:

Opportunities to increase Wikimedia's penetration

This section contains questions and analysis about opportunities to increase Wikimedia's penetration.

Resources

Wikimedia produced statistics

ComScore

  • ComScore data on Wikimedia
    • ComScore has an opt-in panel of two million internet users around the globe and uses a range of statistical techniques to create an internally consistent portrait of the global internet audience. However it is important to note that they do not estimate users who access the Internet via Internet cafés, and people below age 15, therefore, their statistics will not be representative of certain populations
    • It includes a breakdown of Wikimedia users by project, language, age, geography, and portal
    • PDF of ComScore trends data over time

Wikipedia survey

Produced in conjunction with UNU MERIT (United Nations University Maastrich Economic and Social Research Training Center)

Other surveys related to Wikipedia

  • Pew Internet and American Life Project [1]
    This website contains a wide variety of reports based on the pew Center for American life Internet use survey which covers the United States.
    • Wikipedia use survey results 2007
      In 2007 the pew Internet and American life Project added a question to their survey about people's Wikipedia use. This report is a demographic breakdown of Wikipedia it users in the United States
    • Wikipedia use survey results 2008
      This provides the responses from the Pew Internet and the American life survey regarding Wikipedia use
  • Motivation of contributors to Wikipedia German survey
    This webpage lists all the different articles and presentations based off of a survey of German Wikipedia contributors
  • Survey on Catalan Wikipedia.
    Analysis of a project whose readers are all at least bilingual and a majority (63%) trilingual.

International Telecommunication Union

(A UN agency) ITU Homepage. This website provides a variety of reports and statistics about telecommunications globally.

  • Measuring the Information Society the ICT Development Index
    This report ranks countries based on their ICT development using broad categories, ICT access, ICT use, and ICT skills ( measured by literacy, secondary education and tertiary education)
    Wikipedia reach and participation correlates strongly with the ICT Development Indices in this ITU report. Languages spoken in countries with a high ICT Development Index have a Wikipedia with a greater number of articles than languages spoken in countries with a low ICT Development index.
    The report does highlight that this is not only due to differences in national income. Relative price (ICT cost as percentage of monthly per capita income) is a strong driver of ICT development, a lower relative price corresponding with a high ICT development and a high relative price corresponding with a low ICT development.
    Conclusion for the Wikimedia movement to extend reach in under served areas is to help lower the relative price of ICT in those areas.
    Please note also that this report high lights that already in 2007 over 4 billion people have a mobile phone, compared to only 1.7 billion fixed lines. And note that internet access level in sub Sahara Africa is one tenth of the internet access level in the Western world.

Articles

  • The Richness and Reach of Wikinomics: Is the Free Web-Based Encyclopedia Wikipedia Only for the Rich Countries? By Morten Rask article link
    This article uses the human development indicator published by the UN to analyze the economic development level of Wikipedia users
  • For early discussions, see m:reach