Advertising-financed wikis as a business model?

US entrepreneur John Gotts shelled out 2.86 million dollars for Wiki.com last month. His goal: to open up wikis for advertising financing. Wherever there are masses of people, wherever there is cheap production, the economy senses sources of income. Like blogs or social networking sites, advertising-financed wikis are already part of every innovative online business plan in Silicone Valley today. However, the non-profit idea of wikis is not quite so easy to convert into cash. The audience is too unspecific and when advertising is placed, the content has to be checked. But this increases production costs, the skeptics sniff.  
Turning away from the open source spiritBut Gotts must have some ideas, otherwise he would probably not be convinced that "no domain is more valuable than Wiki.com", as he says on Nytimes.com. A departure from the open source spirit of the wiki model is necessary because Gotts' business model works by operating free sub-wikis, such as Soccer.wiki.com. Their owners decide who contributes to their sites. These sub-domains, according to Gott's plan, are served with industry-specific advertising or e-commerce.
Not everyone is convinced yet: For PBwiki co-founder Ramit Sethi, it is still too early to say which model will bring the wiki money. "Nobody has really found a business model for wikis yet," he told the New York Times.