Wikipedia, Promotion and International Business

The influence of Wikipedia in International Business is reflected in the perspective people have after reading an article, creating one or donating pictures to the articles. The use of this encyclopedia could be one of the reasons to increase Intercultural relationships around the world. Most people do not consider that Wikipedia could be used for promotion, but in fact it is used for promotion.

Wikipedia is good for promotion because it is one of the most visited websites in the world. There are about 11,440,000 articles on this free encyclopedia in more than 20 languages. People uses this encyclopedia to have a general view of specific topics, but rarely use them as a first source even though some articles have references from reliable sources. The search of different topics, for example a Museum, on an Internet searcher will bring up as first source a Wikipedia article, leading this to the promotion of Wikipedia and the Museum, noticing that it is in an implicit way.

Wikipedia Chapters are "local associations of users and supporters of the Wikimedia projects, also participate in the promotion, the development, and the funding of the project". (Wikipedia)An example of this is GLAM Mexico (Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums) this group promotes all the people interested in Wikipedia, to create, provide, correct or edit any information referring to articles and donating images of important cultural spaces in a country. Tourism could increase with this information because it talks about the origins of the space, what are the most interesting things in it and shows some images of the temporal/permanent expositions. An example of GLAM Mexico is the article of "Museo de Arte Popular".

Due to the fact that Wikipedia is a highly known encyclopedia, the use of a variety of languages is necessary. Also, the amount of Wikipedians in each country are diverse because of the immigration to other places, these means, for example, that it is common to find a person that resides in another country than from his original and speaks 2 or more languages. People from different countries, cultures and knowledge are getting together to create or translate articles of their main concern on Wikipedia. This increases the interaction amongst this people because they can discuss about the article on the "Discussion" window, even though the language established on this discussion depends on what Wikipedia language website is started, anyone can contribute to it.