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Lundquist Research Series – Wikipedia
Apple Does it Best on Wikipedia
New research finds Apple’s Wikipedia page is the most complete and easily consultable among
the world’s largest 500 listed companies. The research conducted by Lundquist also shows
that to improve their online presence companies must engage with Wikipedia, not back away
as is often assumed.
Milan, 17 February 2010 – Apple has the most complete and easily Top Wikipedia Pages
consultable Wikipedia page among companies in the Fortune Global 500, according to research released today by Italian consultancy 1. Apple (USA) ------------------- 22 pts Lundquist. The Apple entry came out on top in the survey that
2. BT (UK) ------------------------- 21.5 considered information that ran the gamut from number of employees and location of headquarters to corporate governance, branding and Apple, with 22 points out of a possible 25, was followed by BT, which
5. Toyota Motor (JAP) --------- 20.5 7. BAE Systems (UK) ---------- 20 was half a point back. Nokia and Royal Dutch Shell tied for third.
Twenty-one of the top 30 companies are based in the United States, the most represented country with 140 members in the ranking. The Global 500 groups the world’s largest companies by revenue. 7. General Electric (USA) ------ 20 7. Intel (USA)---------------------- 20 Wikipedia, the sixth most visited site on the web, has become a fundamental part a company’s online profile and in many cases is the first stop for people searching for corporate information. This presents a challenge for companies that must understand the website better and find a way to engage it effectively. Standing by aloof and hoping for the Tips for Companies to
best is no longer an option for companies. Engage Wikipedia Effectively
News of companies changing their Wikipedia pages to make them more 1. Respect the rules of Wikipedia,
favourable to the corporate image has resulted in negative publicity and scared many from any attempt to improve their entry. Yet this is potentially dangerous with Wikipedia consistently appearing second or 2. Only edit independently
third in search engine rankings right behind a company’s official site. The online user-generated encyclopaedia has 8 percent of global internet traffic and 60 million unique visitors a month. While 489 of the 500 companies surveyed have a Wikipedia page, the 3. Make copyright-free images and
amount of information contained was generally scarce with the average score 11 out of 25. In order to turn this situation around, companies need to adopt an approach that understands the rules, dynamics and 4. Use discussion pages to
culture of communities of user-generated content like Wikipedia. “Companies need to think beyond their corporate website and realise 5. Monitor the company’s
that Wikipedia is a reality they must confront,” said Eric Sylvers, the head of social media at Lundquist. “Social media are changing the corporate landscape and Wikipedia is part of the transformation so companies must find an effective way to engage the website.” Among the findings of the research: of countries with more than ten Wikipedia Fast Facts
companies in the ranking, Britain had the highest average with 14.6 points, while China’s 34 companies and South Korea’s 14 companies had the lowest overall average (7.9 and 7.8 points respectively); most company pages do not say what geographic area they serve nor do they supply an up-to-date number of employees, organizational charts, list of board members or historical financial data; only a third of the pages surveyed provide the name of the chief executive and chairman with a link to their personal Wikipedia page. Lundquist Research Series – Wikipedia
This first edition of the research, which will be continued on a yearly basis to track developments, analysed Wikipedia pages in English, the international language of finance. Milan-based Lundquist carried out the research in January 2010 following a rigorous four-part protocol (see below for further details on the protocol). LUNDQUIST SRL – Piazza XXV Aprile, 1 | 20121 Milan Tel +39 02 4547 7682 Fax +39 02 999 85 466 www.lundquist.it Country and sector breakdown
The U.S. had 140 companies in the ranking followed by Japan with 67. All other countries had fewer than 50. Of countries with more than ten companies in the Global 500, the United Kingdom had the highest overall score followed by the U.S. and Switzerland. Of the 11 companies without a Wikipedia page, five were Japanese, two were Taiwanese, two German, one French and one Italian. There were also five company pages that did not get any points. Several countries had averages higher than the U.K., but with fewer than ten companies in the ranking. Due to the high number of sectors in the Global 500, macro-sectors were created to facilitate analysis. The best performing macro-sector was the computer & IT services industry with 14.4 points, followed by aerospace, defence & airlines with 14.1. The macro sector of oil, gas, energy, electricity, metals and mining was the largest in number (113 companies) and had the lowest average score (9.8 points tying it with construction and engineering). Countries
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Other findings
The Wikipedia pages of Google and Microsoft were the most clicked with more than 770,000 and 260,000 viewers in Most-clicked Wikipedia pages
December respectively. Apple followed with about 200,000 of companies in Global 500

visitors. The 500 companies collectively had more than 7 Pages were translated into more than four languages other than English for three-fourths of the companies and 86 percent of the companies provided at least four categories listings, which is a way for Wikipedia entries to be found more easily. Only a quarter of companies had more than two photographs on their site (the protocol considered 8. Nike photographs because they make a Wikipedia entry more In the main body of the text the most commonly found areas Source: Wikipedia (December 2009) were history of the company and general information about business operations, provided by 72 percent and 52 percent of the companies respectively. Less common was information on corporate strategies, possibly because it is not easily verifiable information that can be added by Wikipedia users. More than three-fourths of the company pages had no information about corporate governance while only 8 percent got the full two points in this section. Lundquist Research Series – Wikipedia
“While it’s understandable that some information might be missing from a company’s Wikipedia page, the corporate world must make a bigger effort because the reality is that this is where people are going for information,” said Stefano Frigerio, who headed the Wikipedia research. The number of hits of a particular Wikipedia article did not necessarily correspond to a higher quality article. The quality was more dependent on the relative importance assigned to the article by Wikipedia editors. This should encourage companies that want to improve the quality of their Wikipedia articles to engage with the site’s editors. LUNDQUIST SRL – Piazza XXV Aprile, 1 | 20121 Milan | Tel +39 02 4547 7682 | Fax +39 02 928 78792| www.lundquist.it 2 The risks of Wikipedia
It is a common misconception that companies have no role to play on Wikipedia. Though companies are often strongly Most-viewed websites
discouraged from editing their own articles, there are many worldwide

other ways for them to interact and represent themselves on the encyclopaedia. Indeed, companies are encouraged by 2. Facebook Wikipedia to do things like make photographs and other media There are many risks to companies associated with the open contributions policy of Wikipedia, and the fact that information 6. Wikipedia
on Wikipedia is widely distributed. One risk is that companies fail to understand properly the encyclopaedia’s rules, most of which are unwritten, and edit their entries themselves. The edits are often reverted and in the past these attempts have been noticed by the press resulting in bad publicity for the company. 10. Yahoo! Japan Source: Alexa (December 2009) This happened with Wal-Mart when someone working at the
company reportedly changed the Wal-Mart Wikipedia entry from
stating that the company’s wages were on average 20 percent The Five Pillars of Wikipedia
less than other stores to saying it was double the federal 1) Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia –
minimum wage. Large, main-stream media outlets covered the content should be verifiable with Another risk is that somebody may seek to use the 2) Wikipedia has a neutral point of encyclopaedia to damage a competitor’s brand as happened view when a Ford employee on 15 April 2005 changed the article on the Dodge Rampage, a car produced by rival Chrysler, to say the anyone can edit 4) Wikipedians should interact in a Wikiscanner, a program that tracks changes made to Wikipedia, showed that 9 percent of companies had their Wikipedia page changed by employees in 2008. Since it was not possible to 5) Wikipedia does not have firm independently confirm the Wikiscanner data, this was not rules besides the five general included in the protocol. principles presented here Source: Wikipedia A guide to engaging Wikipedia
The nature of Wikipedia and the various controls in place mean that it is difficult for companies to edit their articles without those edits being viewed with suspicion (see corporate footnotes, page 4). This has given many companies the idea that they cannot do anything about the articles on the site. However, the popularity of Wikipedia and the very real possibility that incorrect, misleading or incomplete information about the company can be circulated widely on the encyclopaedia means that it is imperative that companies be active. Having an appreciation of the rules and customs by which the community works is fundamental. The rules and conventions of Wikipedia rely on a form of democratic enforcement for them to operate, that if a bad edit is made there are enough people constantly scanning and looking at the site for it to be picked up and corrected. There also exist groups of Wikipedians that work together to police and improve the quality of articles on specific subjects. For factual information such as financial results, number of employees and management changes, companies are encouraged to make changes themselves. The best way to do this, especially when it is time-sensitive information, is for the company employee in charge of the Wikipedia page to leave a short, clear explanation of the edit in the edit summary box. It is not recommended that companies make longer substantive edits themselves. This is because the second pillar of Wikipedia – Wikipedia has a neutral point of view – says that users should take great care in editing articles on companies they work for, in order to prevent a conflict of interest. The alternative to directly editing the article is to engage and help editors who are interested in their Lundquist Research Series – Wikipedia
subjects. Users can engage with a variety of different groups of people on Wikipedia in order to solicit help with their article. LUNDQUIST SRL – Piazza XXV Aprile, 1 | 20121 Milan | Tel +39 02 4547 7682 | Fax +39 02 928 78792| www.lundquist.it 3 The Protocol
A four-part protocol was used to analyse the Lundquist Wikipedia analysis protocol
Wikipedia pages of the Fortune Global 500 companies. The criteria considered the information 1. Info box -------------------------------- 5 points presented and how it was displayed. Confirming the 2. Page features ----------------------- 6 accuracy of the information in the Wikipedia articles 3. Page sections ----------------------- 14 Total -------------- 25 4. Extra tests (no points) Info box – The first part of the protocol ranked the
information in the infobox on the right-hand side of the page such as the logo and general information
including year of foundation, location of headquarters, revenue, number of employees, industry and
geographical areas served.
Page features – The second section looked for features that improve navigation through the
encyclopaedia and link different pages in a logical way by making associations. Points were also
awarded for the presence of pictures and citations that allow users to confirm easily the information in
the Wikipedia entry.
Page sections – The third part evaluated the information in the main part of the entry. The Protocol
took into account many different themes, from company history to business strategies, corporate
governance, corporate social responsibility (CSR) and brand development. The use of charts and
graphics that facilitate the presentation of the information earned points as well.
Extra tests – The fourth and final part of the protocol did not affect the scoring, but was used for
investigative purposes only. It included the number of visitors per month (December 2009), the
number of back links, that is to say the number of websites that link to the company’s Wikipedia page
(analysed through Yahoo Explorer) and the corporate footnotes.
Corporate footnotes:
In 2007, a graduate student from the California Institute of Technology created a software program called
Wikiscanner that scanned anonymous edits and the IP addresses that they came from. Wikiscanner then
matched these IP addresses to established companies and institutions. This became an embarrassment for
several companies that had anonymously edited their Wikipedia articles to make them more favourable.
About Lundquist Srl
Lundquist Srl is a corporate communications consultancy based in Milan, specialising in online financial communications, corporate websites and CSR. The company also represents Swedish consultancy Hallvarsson & Halvarsson in Austria, Italy and Switzerland. This report is part of the Lundquist research series on web 2.0. Contacts
Stefano Frigerio, Head of Wikipedia Research Lundquist Research Series – Wikipedia
Lundquist research team
Andrea Di Turi – Vesna Dokic – Joakim Lundquist – James Osborne – Sara Rusconi – Alessia Soffientini – Federico Tronconi – Cristina Urban LUNDQUIST SRL – Piazza XXV Aprile, 1 | 20121 Milan | Tel +39 02 4547 7682 | Fax +39 02 928 78792| www.lundquist.it 4 Companies Ranked by Wikipedia Coverage
score (25 max)
oil, gas, energy, electricity, metals & mining oil, gas, energy, electricity, metals & mining banking, financial services & insurance oil, gas, energy, electricity, metals & mining food services, food processing & beverages banking, financial services & insurance food services, food processing & beverages banking, financial services & insurance banking, financial services & insurance LUNDQUIST SRL – Piazza XXV Aprile, 1 | 20121 Milan | Tel +39 02 4547 7682 | Fax +39 02 928 78792| www.lundquist.it 5 Rank Company
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LUNDQUIST SRL – Piazza XXV Aprile, 1 | 20121 Milan | Tel +39 02 4547 7682 | Fax +39 02 928 78792| www.lundquist.it 6 Rank Company
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LUNDQUIST SRL – Piazza XXV Aprile, 1 | 20121 Milan | Tel +39 02 4547 7682 | Fax +39 02 928 78792| www.lundquist.it 7 Rank Company
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LUNDQUIST SRL – Piazza XXV Aprile, 1 | 20121 Milan | Tel +39 02 4547 7682 | Fax +39 02 928 78792| www.lundquist.it 8 Rank Company
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LUNDQUIST SRL – Piazza XXV Aprile, 1 | 20121 Milan | Tel +39 02 4547 7682 | Fax +39 02 928 78792| www.lundquist.it 9 Rank Company
Score Rank Company
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LUNDQUIST SRL – Piazza XXV Aprile, 1 | 20121 Milan | Tel +39 02 4547 7682 | Fax +39 02 928 78792| www.lundquist.it 10

Source: http://www.lundquist.it/media/files/Lundquist_Wikipedia_Fortune_Global_500_executive_summary.pdf