We’ve just released another case study revealing the inner workings of the information hub of the Internet: Wikipedia. Did you know that in just ten years Wikipedia contributors wrote and edited over 13 million articles in more than 160 languages?

The site grew so fast in those ten years it suffered from almost chronic downtime until it finally expanded to a data center in Florida in 2004, and only after the founders were able to raise enough money to secure more servers. Wikipedia’s online presence is wholly dependent on donations, since the founders have vowed to never put advertisements on their site.

Wikipedia has received a lot of recognition for its unique, practically altruistic approach to information sharing, which is all too simple to replicate as far as its supporting infrastructure. The non-profit system has proven to be a repeated source of trouble for the site, but it is still very likely that Wikipedia can look forward to another decade of growth and support from its millions of users.