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December 4, 2006

Wikia To Buy ArmchairGM for $2 million

Michael Arrington

31 comments »

Wikia will announce the acquisition of ArmchairGM sometime this week, according to a source close to the transaction. The company was bought for $2 million in cash and Wikia stock.

We briefly mentioned ArmchairGM in a post about a competitor a couple of months ago. The service, which was created by four guys in New York, is a sort of digg-wiki-sports hybrid thing. Apparently the technology is interesting and compatible with Wikia, and my guess this is partially a hire-by-acquisition type deal.

Our previous posts on Wikia are here.

  • Sphere It

This entry was posted on Monday, December 4th, 2006 at 10:11 pm and is filed under Company & Product Profiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

Trackbacks/Pings (Trackback URL)

  1. TechCrunch en français » Wikia achètera ArmchairGM pour $2 millions

    December 5th, 2006 at 1:05 am

  2. WikiAngela » Wikia acquires ArmchairGM

    December 5th, 2006 at 4:30 pm

  3. Somewhat Frank

    December 5th, 2006 at 8:37 pm

  4. Prime News Blog » Blog Archive » Wikia to buy the digg/wiki/sports hybrid ArmchairGM for $2 million

    December 5th, 2006 at 9:26 pm

  5. Denken Über » ArmchairGM un mix de wiki, digg y blogs

    December 5th, 2006 at 10:40 pm

  6. Techcrunch » Blog Archive » Wikia Gets An Undisclosed Amount Of Funding From Amazon

    December 6th, 2006 at 1:50 pm

  7. at Start-up.co.nz

    December 6th, 2006 at 7:18 pm

  8. Techcrunch » Blog Archive » Wikia Announces Free Wiki Hosting

    December 11th, 2006 at 1:43 pm

  9. Wikia Announces Free Wiki Hosting at Swiss Podcast Directory and Blog

    December 11th, 2006 at 1:59 pm

  10. ValueWiki Blog » Blog Archive » Startup Gossip 2

    December 18th, 2006 at 10:38 am

  11. Wikia Gets An Undisclosed Amount Of Funding From Amazon

    January 8th, 2007 at 1:02 pm

  12. Wikia Announces Free Wiki Hosting

    January 8th, 2007 at 4:56 pm

  13. Our Candidate Visits Armchairgm « Boise Wants Jay Mariotti

    May 16th, 2007 at 12:32 pm

Comments

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  1. mh

    December 4th, 2006 at 10:15 pm

    Anyone know what happened to Marshall Kiripatrick? He is no longer listed - seems like his Rails article about his firends site exposed him… Michael?

  2. Emre Sokullu

    December 4th, 2006 at 10:56 pm

    hire-by-acquisition = acqu-hiring

  3. magher

    December 4th, 2006 at 11:28 pm

    yuck X( the website design is nauseating.

  4. Powell Quiring

    December 4th, 2006 at 11:34 pm

    Michael, I’ve been reading your stuff and listening to you on Gilmore Gang for over a year. I find it difficult to read the information on the site due to the flashing adds. Don’t you think this is a bit over the top?

  5. Michael Arrington

    December 4th, 2006 at 11:52 pm

    Powell,

    Yes i do.

    Changes coming.

    I hate these flashing ads too.

  6. chinalu

    December 5th, 2006 at 1:03 am

    2mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmillion!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  7. Keith

    December 5th, 2006 at 2:42 am

    # magher

    December 4th, 2006 at 11:28 pm

    yuck X( the website design is nauseating.

    –

    What exactly is so bad about it? I’ll admit there are some things they could to do enhance the design but to deem a website as “yuck” sounds like something a 10 year old would say. Unless the demographic for techcrunch is seeing a new wave of underage users these days.

  8. Vondre Whaley

    December 5th, 2006 at 3:38 am

    It doesn’t matter all that much how a website looks.

    For goodness sake, look at Craigs List!

    These guys have a hold on a targeted niche and Wikia is smart to make a low cost acquisition.

    It can only boost their ad revenue in the longterm, especially if they can enhance the site and continue to build the user base.

    Good Success!

    Vondre’
    http://www.askfinancialquestions.com

  9. Samson

    December 5th, 2006 at 5:29 am

    Digg-opedia. Sweet. Are these enhancements going to be included in Wikipedia?

  10. Shii

    December 5th, 2006 at 5:54 am

    $2 million for a website that maybe 300 people seem to be using? Why don’t they just make their own Digg clone?

  11. Jerome

    December 5th, 2006 at 8:19 am

    @shii

    because time is money and these guy know how to develop with Mediawiki.

  12. Pburke

    December 5th, 2006 at 8:54 am

    It’s looks like a great wiki, lots of poential. could be a good investment if they are getting the guys to start it to work for them.

  13. Marshall

    December 5th, 2006 at 9:26 am

    Mh, while that’s a charming theory you’ve got - you can read about my departure from TC here http://www.crunchnotes.com/?p=313

  14. Clarke Scott

    December 5th, 2006 at 1:50 pm

    Angela Beesley Vice-President, Community Relations and co-founder of Wikia has also been a volunteer editor at Wikipedia, and was on the board of its parent organisation, the Wikimedia Foundation.

  15. Andy

    December 5th, 2006 at 9:53 pm

    http://www.sportiki.com is the biggest competitor

  16. Sean Forman

    December 6th, 2006 at 1:14 pm

    As someone in the sports content biz, I’m amazed at this price for the content. Even on the day of acquisition they really only had 15-25 page edits. Sportiki has only had 20 edits in last five days. A site I set up like wikipedia for niche baseball content (lots of history) has had 200 edits so far today.

    http://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/

  17. Avi Muchnick

    December 6th, 2006 at 2:57 pm

    I went to school with Rob Lefkowitz, one of the founders. I wish him only the best and congratulations on getting acquired!

  18. stress

    March 10th, 2007 at 4:22 pm

    very good

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