Wikipedia founder remakes Web publishing economics

Subject: [bytesforall_readers] Wikipedia founder remakes Web publishing
economics
Date: Wed, 13 Dec 2006 01:50:50 +0530
From: Frederick Noronha <fred@bytesforall.org>
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Wikipedia founder remakes Web publishing economics
ReutersAll Reuters News

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Free software is about to get freer.

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales said on Monday his for-profit company,
Wikia Inc., is ready to give away -- for free -- all the software,
computing, storage and network access that Web site builders need to
create community collaboration sites.

Wikia, a commercial counterpart to the non-profit Wikipedia, will go
even further to provide customers -- bloggers or other operators who
meet its criteria for popular Web sites -- 100 percent of any
advertising revenue from the sites they build.

Started two years ago, Wikia (http://www.wikia.com
<http://www.wikia.com>;) aims to build on
the anyone-can-edit success of the Wikipedia online encyclopedia.
Using the same underlying software, called MediaWiki, Wikia hosts
group publishing sites, known as wikis, on topics from Star Wars to
psychology to travel to iPods.

"It is open-source software and open content," Wales said in a phone
interview. "We will be providing the computer hosting for free, and
the publisher can keep the advertising revenue."

That could prove disruptive to business models of Web sites that
provide free services to customers but require a cut of any resulting
revenue in return.

Wikia gives away the tools and the revenue to its users. It requires
only that sites built with the company's resources link to Wikia.com,
which makes money through advertising.

Wikia calls the free-hosting service "OpenServing"
(http://www.openserving.com <http://www.openserving.com>;). It runs on an
easy-to-use version of
MediaWiki software developed by ArmchairGM.com, a sports fan community
site Wikia recently acquired and plans to extend.

Wales is betting the plunging cost of computers and networks can help
Wikia support the free services offer. "It is becoming more and more
practical and feasible to do," he said.

WISDOM TO PREVAIL

"We don't have all the business model answers, but we are confident --
as we always have been -- that the wisdom of our community will
prevail," he said.

The move follows the announcement last week that Amazon.com had become
Wikia's first corporate investor and is acting as the sole investor in
Wikia's second round of funding. Terms were not disclosed.

Wikia took $4 million in funding in March from Bessemer Venture
Partners, Omidyar Network, high-profile Silicon Valley "angel" backers
including Marc Andreessen, Dan Gillmor, Reid Hoffman and Mitch Kapor
and Joichi Ito of Japan.

In recent months, Amazon.com has revealed an ambitious strategy of its
own to offer a range of low-cost computer, data storage and Web site
hosting services to companies large and small, which could come into
play for Wikia.

Wales said using Amazon to supply Web services is not part of Wikia's
deal with Amazon. "Potentially, but this is really completely
separate," he said when asked if there was a tie.

Wikia aims to become is a clearinghouse of free software.

Armchair's software is the first of hundreds of freely licensed
software packages to be hosted by the company in the near future,
Wales said. These could include popular open-source publishing
software such as WordPress and Drupal. Consumers would then have a
single password across all sites.

"The real concept is to become much broader, to host lots of different
free software and free content, Wales said.

Thirty-thousand users have posted 400,000 articles so far on Wikia
sites. The San Mateo, California-based company employs 38 people,
including top volunteer editors from the Wikipedia.

Copyright 2006 Reuters
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