Wikia, a for-profit sister site of Wikipedia, received a second round of funding today, all of it coming from Amazon. No word yet on how much Amazon has forked over.
Just this week, Wikia announced that they would purchase ArmchairGM, an online sports community, for $2 million in cash and Wikia stock.
In March, we reported that the company received $4 million from Bessemer Venture Partners and Omidyar Network, with participation from angel investors Dan Gillmor, Reid Hoffman, Joichi Ito, and Mitch Kapor.
Wikia’s Gil Penchina told GigaOm that the funding and acquisition were “frankly very separate events” that “just happened to come together at the same time” but that the acquisition would have been hard to accomplish without Amazon’s money.
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Good for them. Yet every time I see a story like this I wonder if we’re turning the clock back to 2000?
Interesting. Very interesting.
Yeah, it does seem like we’ve seen this picture before.
Nice, I like websites that actually provide useful services. I am an attorney and use wikipedia every damn day at work. It is a great source for knowledge on just about everything!
Glad to finally see TC coverage on something other than pic sharing, instant messaging and all the other crap that is messing up our kids and may lead to be the ultimate downfall of our country. Everything in moderation is good and I believe we Americans are going a bit extreme as far as entertainment is concerned. Videos on cellphones, give me a break!! Just my $0.02
I agree, and I think that the future of useful information on the web is all the better for it. I wish Angela Beesley and all the folks at Wikia the best of luck
So what exactly is the business model behind Wikia? I don’t get why they would need so much money.
By the way Natalia, keep us updated on this.
Am I the only one that is still skeptical about information that can be edited by ANYONE.
(#3) I’m surprised that an attorney would rely so heavily on this type of resource.
How about Lexis Nexis?
@beatbox
Lexis Nexis is expensive and is hard to navigate through. Sometimes for a quick bit of information its easier to search on Wikipedia.
Im sorry, but I wouldn’t want my attorney doing fact-checking on Wikipedia.
Maybe for quick bits of info, but nothing more.
So, anyone knows if Wikia Inc is profitable or not at this point? Some time ago they were claiming to open a R&D center in Poland. Somehow this got forgotten…
Exactly, Jerome. For me, $ is not really the issue because I work for a large law firm and we have a flat fee contract with both Lexis and WL. However, I use Wikipedia to get info on our clients, opposing parties (usually big corps), cities (make sure we’re filing lawsuit in the right court), etc. Also, Wikipedia is a great starting point for many of my research projects as it provides basic info on many different legal subjects.
#9 So far, wikipedia has served me well. But again, I use it just as a starting point in my research. I would not cite to a wikipedia article in a brief
Vik, thanks for the clarification. I can understand using Wikipedia under those circumstances.
#10: Of course Wikia is profitable, I just edited their financial pages so that it says they are profitable, so obviously it is true! Lack of accountability in accounting is definitely the next wikifrontier!
Wikiality indeed.
total cost for Wikipedia this quarter: $321,200 or ~1.2 million for a year. See http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Budget/2005
Let’s assume, arguendo, that Wikia becomes half the size of Wikipedia, and only put up google ads. They would make a crap-load of money.
Wikia is not profitable. I believe it won’t even make any money - the traffic will stay minimal.
Lightning doesn’t strike twice. If these investors really believe Jimmy Wales can pull off Wikia to even a fraction of the success that Wikipedia enjoys then they are blind.
Wikia is not a “sister site” of Wikipedia. Saying they are such only encourages people to think they are the same thing as Wikipedia. Wikipedia is a non-profit and amazing effort. Wikia is a pile of dog shit.
WiAmazon ???
“Wikia is a pile of dog shit.”
That had me spitting saliva on my monitor! Most amusing.
There does seem to be some ignorance as what wikia verses wikipedia is though - so it was worth pointing out.
Interesting move on Amazon’s point. Though, a smart move, if Wikia will move forward in any similar way to Wikipedia.
Wikia does not offer “private wikis” - they must accept every proposal for a new site manually and they accept only these that have some “guarantee” of gathering strong community and success.
They have recently moved into making some sort of “product” wikis - for iPod, games, some hardware…
If they could put more effort on improving MediaWiki…
As for profits: this surprises me. You do not have to be smart to make $1 per page 1000 impressions with Google Ads. Well, if you put them on the right-hand side it would be worse. But ok, let us see some graph:
http://www.alexaholic.com/wikidot.com+wikia.com
It seems Wikia is getting at least x10 - x20 more traffic that Wikidot. They also claim they have 1 milion visitors per day which simply do not match. If either of these is true, is it really THAT HARD to monetize this traffic? Wikidot is almost profitable (with very low running costs).
Wikia could:
- sell links (footers of the page)
- different ads for product wikis (e.g. shopping.com?)
- sell histing for private wikis
- accept any proposed wikis (scalability issue? naaa)
- build nice services
I just do not follow their strategies. If Wikidot would have their traffic it would not need any investments at all to either keep it running or expand.
regards - mf
This is a good site to browser, as wiki.org was blocked.
http://www.ezecho.com
Hey…I constantly hear of companies raising funds…sometimes obscene amounts. What am I doing wrong??
http://www.revafinancial.squarespace.com