Making the Wikimedia Sound Logo [Meta] was a huge collaborative project with considerable community participation. Thank you! We received 3,235 sound logo submissions from 2,094 volunteers across 135 countries during the contest. We also saw 2,065 volunteers vote to select the winning entry from the final 10 candidates.
The main use case for the Sound Logo was to identify Wikimedia content on voice assistant platforms like Amazon’s Alexa, Apple’s Siri and Google’s Assistant. These platforms had first engaged the Foundation’s Partnerships team in 2021 and 2022 about improving Wikimedia attribution through a branded sound. In light of current discussions about risks to referral traffic and shifts in search trends, content identification continues to be a priority and vital to Wikimedia’s future sustainability.
Business and technology changes have challenged the speed of sound logo adoption. With conversational AI becoming a key consideration for voice assistant platforms over the past year, these platforms have deprioritised integrating our Sound Logo to identify Wikimedia content. We will continue to pursue opportunities for its adoption through a major partnership as market needs change.
The Brand Studio and Partnerships teams will work with the Wikimedia Enterprise team to make our Sound Logo available for Enterprise customers to implement, to ensure their users know when they’re hearing Wikimedia content. And whilst we explore reaching new readers as part of our Future Audiences work, we will include the Sound Logo as a tool for TikTok creators to adopt when they cite Wikimedia content.
The Sound Logo will continue to be a key aspect of Movement-wide materials including videos, podcasts, communications and marketing assets, like these usages on social media by Wikimedistas de Uruguay and in a video by Wiki for Climate Change Maghreb. As such, the sonic guidelines for correctly using the Sound Logo have been updated with advice on closed captions, co-branding and branded video idents (bumpers) that incorporate Wikimedia visual logos and the Sound Logo. The Affiliates Presentation Template has also been updated with a short guide to the Sound Logo and end slides embedded with the Sound Logo.
As always, your feedback and suggestions are welcome and appreciated as we continue to assist in making your valuable contributions to keep knowledge free easier, more accessible and better attributed.
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