Wikia

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search
Wikia, Inc.
Type Private
Founded 2004
Founder Jimmy Wales
Angela Beesley
Headquarters San Mateo, CA, US
Key people Gil Penchina (CEO)
Products Wikia Search
Revenue ?
Employees 42[1]
Slogan Creating Communities
Website www.wikia.com
Alexa rank ~300 as of April 2008[2]
Type of site Wiki farm
Advertising Google AdSense & Fastclick
Registration optional
Available in Multilingual
Launched 2004
Current status Active

Wikia (formerly Wikicities) is a selective free web hosting service for wikis (or wiki farms) operated by Wikia, Inc., a for-profit Delaware company founded in late 2004.[3]

Wikia targets communities, both those established offline and those with a purely online following. Wikia is free of charge for readers and editors and licenses user-provided text content under the GNU Free Documentation License or, in the case of Memory Alpha and Uncyclopedia, a Creative Commons license (CC by-nc-sa). The wiki software used is MediaWiki.

Wikia was founded by Jimmy Wales and Angela Beesley, respectively the Chairman Emeritus and Advisory Board chair of the Wikimedia Foundation.

Contents

[edit] History

Wikia changed its name from Wikicities on March 27, 2006, saying that "the name Wikicities has often caused confusion, with many people believing it was a site for city guides rather than wikis about any topic."[4] Following this change, Wikia announced that it had received US$4 million in venture capital from Bessemer Venture Partners[5] and First Round Capital. Amazon.com has invested US$10 million in Series B funding.[6] As a result, senior VP of business development Jeff Blackburn joined the company board.[7]

In November 2006, Wikia claimed to have spent only $5.74 on marketing, while generating 40 to 50 million page views.[7] Certain Wikia projects have independently spent money on advertising.[8] The company spent $2 million to purchase ArmchairGM, a previously independently hosted site on the MediaWiki software.[7]

OpenServing was a short-lived Web publishing project owned by Wikia, founded on December 12, 2006.[9][10] Abandoned in January 2008, its closure was never formally announced.[11]

[edit] Topics and wikis

Wikia covers a broad range of topics; most widely-scoped community projects are accepted, with the exception of ideas that compete with the Wikimedia Foundation's projects, which Wikia's founders are heavily involved in. In comparison with Wikipedia, Wikia hosts specialized wikis that offer more detailed or comprehensive content. Because Wikia is not an encyclopedia, subjects not qualifying for inclusion on Wikipedia due to lack of notability may be accepted on the respective Wikia wiki. For example, a minor character in a Star Wars film may have its own article on Wookieepedia, but only a brief mention on Wikipedia.[12]

Wikia requires all text content to be licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License, although some imported wikis use Creative Commons licenses.[13]

The project announced the creation of its one hundredth wiki on February 3, 2005.[14] As of July 2007, it had over 3,000 wikis in over 50 languages.[15]

As of December 2008, wikia.com's Alexa traffic ranking was 325.[2] The Yu-Gi-Oh! and Tibia fan information wikis account for 17% and 14% of this traffic respectively.[2] The Wikia-hosted Star Trek wiki Memory Alpha[16] and World of Warcraft wiki WoWWiki[17] currently use separate domain names. Wikia intends to move WoWWiki to wikia.com to boost its attractiveness to advertisers, as it did with Uncyclopedia.[18][19]

Most domain names not included in wikia.com's statistics stem from wikis founded separately and later incorporated into Wikia. In the case of GuildWiki, this involved Wikia paying money and stock options to the previous owner of the domain name.[20]

[edit] Wikia Green

Wikia Green is a wiki operated by Wikia, Inc. which focuses on environmental issues.[21] Jimmy Wales started the project after a conversation with environmentalist activist and politician Al Gore, who suggested creating a green wiki.[21]

[edit] Software

Wikia runs a modified version of MediaWiki on Linux (Red Hat and Debian) servers, and claims to provide both technical and social support for all aspects of running a wiki community.[22]

[edit] Search engines

[edit] Wikiasari

Wikia Inc. initially proposed creating a copyleft search engine; the software (but not the site) was named "Wikiasari" by a November 2004 naming contest.[23] The proposal became inactive in 2005.

[edit] Search Wikia

Main article: Wikia Search
 This article may need to be updated. Please update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information, and remove this template when finished. Please see the talk page for more information. (March 2009)

The "public alpha" of Wikia Search web search engine was launched on January 7, 2008.[24] This roll-out version of the search interface was roundly panned by reviewers in technology media.[25] The project was ended in March 2009.[26]

[edit] Company

Wikia, Inc. is a company based in San Mateo, and San Francisco, California, U.S.[27] The company was originally incorporated in Florida in December 2004 and re-incorporated in Delaware as Wikia, Inc. on 10 January 2006. Angela Beesley has served since the beginning as Wikia's Vice-President of Community Relations.[28] Gil Penchina, a former vice president and general manager at eBay, was hired as CEO on June 5, 2006. Gil had previously been one of a group of angel investors in the company.[28][29] Michael E. Davis, a former business partner of Wales who served for years as a founding member of the Wikimedia Foundation board and was that organization's Treasurer, was named Treasurer and Secretary of Wikia in January 2006.

Wikia has some technical staff in the USA, but has also opened an office in Poznań, Poland in 2006. Explaining his choice of location, Wales commented "It's about reasonable salaries and high quality. You can find cheaper programmers in other parts of the world, but the quality's not there!"[15]

[edit] Controversy

[edit] Advertising and use of free content

 This section relies largely or entirely upon a single source. Please help improve this article by introducing appropriate citations of additional sources. (February 2009)

Often Wikia has expanded by acquiring an existing wiki's domain name, userlists and databases from a founder or co-founder. The original wiki is then shut down without consulting its editors or wider community and the domain redirected to Wikia's version of the project. In at least two cases[20][30][31] the content is used under a Creative Commons non-commercial license, raising the question of whether the wikis themselves can legitimately be sold to Wikia for commercial use.[32]

Once a wiki is on Wikia, there can be problems with inappropriate advertisements or advertising in the body text area.[33] There is no easy way for individual communities to switch to conventional paid hosting, as Wikia usually owns the relevant domain names. Those communities who have left Wikia find the company continues to operate the abandoned wiki using its original name and content, adversely affecting the new wiki's search rankings.[34]

[edit] Wikia and the Wikimedia Foundation

Wikia has also sometimes been accused by critics[who?] of unduly profiting from a perceived association with Wikipedia, even though Wikia, Inc. is not the same entity as Wikipedia's non-profit parent entity, the Wikimedia Foundation. Wikia has been referred to in the media as the commercial counterpart to the non-profit Wikipedia.[35][36] Both Wikimedia[37] and Wikia staff[38] call this description inaccurate.

Both Wikipedia and Wikia were co-founded by Jimmy Wales (with Larry Sanger co-founding Wikipedia, and Angela Beesley co-founding Wikia). In 2006, the Wikimedia Foundation shared hosting and bandwidth costs with Wikia, Inc. The Wikimedia Foundation received some donated office space from Wikia, Inc. during the fiscal year ending June 30, 2006. At the end of fiscal year 2007, the Foundation was owed US$6,000 by Wikia. As of June 2007, two members of the Foundation's Board of Directors also served as employees, officers, or directors of Wikia, Inc.[39]

In January 2009, Wikia subleased two conference rooms to the Wikimedia Foundation for the Wikipedia Usability Initiative.[40] Bid averaging was used "as a way to arrive at a fair market rate".[41]

[edit] Wikianswers

Wikia relaunched in January 2009 a previously moribund[42] question-and-answer site, which used the name "Wikianswers", while Answers.com had a much more prominent site "WikiAnswers".[43] Answers.com CEO Bob Rosenschein stated "Wikia is creating market confusion by associating its Q&A category with our market-leading WikiAnswers domain and site."[44]

[edit] See also

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Wikia, Inc.. "Wikia, Inc.". http://www.wikia.com/wiki/Wikia%2C_Inc.. Retrieved on 2008-10-23. 
  2. ^ a b c "wikia.com traffic details". Alexa. http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/wikia.com. Retrieved on 2008-12-06. 
  3. ^ Pink, Daniel H. (2005-03-13). "The Book Stops Here". Wired News. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.03/wiki.html. Retrieved on 2007-08-01. 
  4. ^ Beesley, Angela (March 27, 2006). "Wikicities relaunches as Wikia". Wikia. http://wikia.com/wiki/Wikicities_relaunches_as_Wikia. Retrieved on 2006-07-15. 
  5. ^ Hinman, Michael (March 10, 2006). "Venture capitalists invest wiki-millions". Tampa Bay Business Journal. http://tampabay.bizjournals.com/tampabay/stories/2006/03/13/story1.html. Retrieved on 2006-03-10. 
  6. ^ Primack, Dan (2007-01-03). "PE Week Wire". Private Equity Week. http://www.pewnews.com/story.asp?sectioncode=44&storycode=41174. 
  7. ^ a b c Blitstein, Ryan (2006-12-06). "Amazon puts faith – and money – in Wikia". Mercury News. 
  8. ^ Parry, Laurence. "WikiFur Ledger". http://en.wikifur.com/wiki/WikiFur:Ledger. Retrieved on 2007-03-08. 
  9. ^ "Wikipedia founder remakes Web-publishing economics". Reuters/USA Today. 2006-12-12. http://www.usatoday.com/tech/products/software/2006-12-12-wiki-free-tools_x.htm?csp=34. Retrieved on 2007-10-04. 
  10. ^ "Wikia Announces Free Wiki Hosting". TechCrunch. 2006-12-11. http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/12/11/wikia-announces-free-wiki-hosting. 
  11. ^ "Wikia's OpenServing Project Dies a Quiet Death". Mars Magazine. 2007-10-10. http://www.marsmag.com/?p=760. [dead link]
  12. ^ McNichol, Tom (March 2007). "With Wikia, a Wikipedia founder looks to strike it rich". Business 2.0 Magazine. http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/business2_archive/2007/03/01/8401010/index.htm. Retrieved on 2008-06-24. 
  13. ^ "Wikia copyrights". http://www.wikia.com/wiki/Wikia_copyrights. Retrieved on 2008-12-06. 
  14. ^ Beesley, Angela et al. (February 3, 2005). "100 Wikicities". http://wikia.com/index.php?title=Press_releases/100_Wikicities. Retrieved on 2006-10-15. 
  15. ^ a b Shannon, Victoria (28 September 2006). "Wikipedia Founder Staffs For Profit Wikia Spinoff". International Herald Tribune. http://www.technewsworld.com/story/Vkg5Q8W8POblL7/Wikipedia-Founder-Staffs-For-Profit-Wikia-Spinoff.xhtml. Retrieved on 2006-10-28. [dead link]
  16. ^ "memory-alpha.org traffic details". Alexa. http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/memory-alpha.org. Retrieved on 2008-12-06. 
  17. ^ "wowwiki.com traffic details". Alexa. http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/wowwiki.com. Retrieved on 2008-12-06. 
  18. ^ "WoWWiki:Domain name" (Wiki). WoWWiki. http://www.wowwiki.com/WoWWiki:Domain_name. Retrieved on 2008-12-06. 
  19. ^ "Forum:Uncyclopedia domain name" (Wiki). Uncyclopedia. http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Forum:Uncyclopedia_domain_name. Retrieved on 2008-12-06. 
  20. ^ a b "GuildWiki: Wikia Move". GuildWiki. http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/GuildWiki:Wikia_Move. Retrieved on 2007-10-20. 
  21. ^ a b Wenzel, Elsa (2008-09-09). "Wikipedia's Wales launches Wikia Green". Cnet. http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-10035622-54.html. 
  22. ^ Wikia, Inc.. "Why use Wikia?". http://wikia.com/wiki/Why_use_Wikia%3F. Retrieved on 2006-10-28. 
  23. ^ The name was derived from the Hawaiian word for "quick" and asari, Japanese for "rummaging search".
  24. ^ Public alpha of Wikia search project
  25. ^ Manjoo, Farhad (2008-01-07). "Wikipedia founder's search engine gets bad reviews". Salon.com. http://machinist.salon.com/blog/2008/01/07/search_wikia/. Retrieved on 2008-01-07. 
  26. ^ Wales giving up on Wikia Search
  27. ^ "San Mateo-Based Wikia Lands Investment from Amazon.com". Silicon Valley Wire. 2006-12-06. http://www.siliconvalleywire.com/svw/2006/12/san_mateobased_.html. Retrieved on 2007-03-08. ; California Business Portal, Agent for service of process address; Go Daddy, Registered domain address.
  28. ^ a b Wikia, Inc.. "Bessemer Venture Partners Funds Jimmy Wales' Startup Wikia". http://www.wikia.com/index.php?title=Press_releases/March_2006&oldid=28295. Retrieved on 2006-03-31. 
  29. ^ "Wikia taps eBay exec as CEO". San Francisco Business Times. 2006-06-05. http://sanfrancisco.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/stories/2006/06/05/daily9.html. 
  30. ^ The acquisition of uncyclopedia.org from Jonathan Huang in July 2006 and gamingwikis.org from Phil Nelson in October 2007
  31. ^ "Announcement: Wikia & Uncyclopedia". Uncyclopedia. 2006-07-10. http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/forum:Announcement:_Wikia_%26_Uncyclopedia. 
  32. ^ "How to Stop Commerial Use of Copyleft Materials?". Slashdot. 2007-09-15. http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/15/0327236. 
  33. ^ Finkelstein, Seth (2008-09-25). "Read me first: Wikipedia isn't about human potential, whatever Wales says". The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/sep/25/wikipedia.internet. 
  34. ^ Finkelstein, Seth (2008-07-31). "How will Wikia cope when the workers all quit the plantation?". The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/jul/31/wikipedia. 
  35. ^ "Wikipedia founder says to challenge Google, Yahoo". Reuters. 2007-03-09. http://www.reuters.com/article/internetNews/idUST34811320070309. 
  36. ^ "Community websites take wiki path". BBC News. BBC. 2006-12-12. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6171399.stm. 
  37. ^ "Wikia, Inc. is not the commercial counterpart to Wikipedia or the Wikimedia Foundation". Wikimedia Foundation. http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Wikia,_Inc._is_not_the_commercial_counterpart_to_Wikipedia_or_the_Wikimedia_Foundation. Retrieved on 2008-02-26. 
  38. ^ "Wikimedia". Wikia, Inc.. http://www.wikia.com/wiki/Wikimedia. Retrieved on 2008-02-26. 
  39. ^ Wikimedia Foundation 2006-2007 Audit page 9 says "The Organization shared hosting and bandwidth costs with Wikia, Inc., a for-profit company founded by the same founder as Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. Included in accounts receivable at June 30, 2007 is $6,000 due from Wikia, Inc. for these costs. The Organization received some donated office space from Wikia Inc. during the year ended June 30, 2006 valued at $6,000. No donation of the office space occurred in 2007. Through June 30, 2007, two members of the Organization’s board of directors also serve as employees, officers, or directors of Wikia, Inc."
  40. ^ A note on the Wikipedia Usability Initiative
  41. ^ Foundation-l: Wikia leasing office space to WMF
  42. ^ Wikianswers archive snapshot
  43. ^ Jimmy Wales Quietly Launches Wikianswers
  44. ^ WikiAnswers: setting the record straight

[edit] External links

Wikinews
Wikinews has news related to this article:
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikia"
Personal tools