Wikia videos and info

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."^[3] Following this change, Wikia announced that it had received US$4 million in venture capital from Bessemer Venture Partners.^[4] Amazon.com has invested US$10 million in Series B funding.^[5] As a result, senior VP of business development Jeff Blackburn joined the company board.^[6]

In November 2006, Wikia claimed to have spent only $5.74 on marketing, while generating 40 to 50 million page views.^[6] Certain Wikia projects have independently spent money on advertising.^[7] The company spent $2 million to purchase ArmchairGM, a previously independently hosted site on the MediaWiki software.^[6]

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.^[11]

The project announced the creation of its one hundredth wiki on February 3, 2005.^[13] As of July 2007, it had over 3,000 wikis in over 50 languages.^[14]

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]

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]

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]

Search engines

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.

Search Wikia

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]

Company

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!"^[14]

Controversy

Advertising and use of free content

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^[29]^[30]^[20] 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.^[31]

Once a wiki is on Wikia, there can be problems with inappropriate advertisements or advertising in the body text area.^[32] 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.^[33]

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.^[34]^[35] Both Wikimedia^[36] and Wikia staff^[37] 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.^[38]

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