Ad-Supported Wikis Should Require Marketers to Participate

Up until now, wikis have served as collaborative read-write web sites that either individuals or businesses can contribute to.

That all changed today. MediaPost reports that IDG has launched an an ad-supported wiki that enables gamers to offer advice and strategy on a variety of pursuits.

Corporate sponsored wikis are an interesting and untested idea. They seems like a natural extension to ad-supported message boards. I think they will click with certain users because wikis are more organized and arguably more trustworthy. This is because users can edit each other’s contributions.

However, for this to really pay off for the advertisers, simple banner ads won’t cut it. I would love to see the wiki’s sponsors – Best Buy and T-Mobile – get into the fray by contributing their own content to the resource. They should get involved with the conversation but stay at arms length. This will increase their street cred with the fervent gamers.

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Steve Rubel is a PR strategist with nearly 16 years of public relations, marketing, journalism and communications experience. He currently serves as a Senior Vice President with Edelman, the largest independent global PR firm.

He authors the Micro Persuasion weblog, which tracks how blogs and participatory journalism are changing the public relations practice.