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nerdfight
Wikia Search
Jimmy Wales's estranged wife watches over his Wikia failure
Believers in the wisdom of crowds will tell you that wikis, those collections of anyone-can-edit Web pages, are resistant to vandalism. Not so Jimmy Wales's Wikia Search, an attempt to build a search engine along wiki lines, which he is once again touting, this time to Forbes. The search results for "Jimmy Wales" currently display a header with a picture of a smiling woman. Who is she, and what does she tell us about Wikia Search? More »
the sum of all human knowledge
Jimmy Wales fails to usher in "new era of politics"
Chris Anderson, the editor of Wired, occasionally says something clever. Why doesn't his magazine cover politics? "We're not working on an election story," he told MarketWatch. "This comes from my own sense that politics today is being driven by the institutional structure of the past 20 years." Too bad Jimmy Wales hasn't figured this out. Proclaimed the founder of Wikipedia on July 4, 2006:Broadcast media brought us broadcast politics. And let's be simple and bluntly honest about it, left or right, conservative or liberal, broadcast politics are dumb, dumb, dumb.Wales's commandments to his followers: Join a mailing list and start editing his advertising-supported Campaigns Wikia site. The wiki has seen all of 14 changes in the last month. Wales himself stopped editing the wiki in September 2006. More »
2:20 PM on Fri Apr 25 2008
By Owen Thomas
730 views,
26 comments
Latest by Troll_2.0: Why didn't Jimmy just stick with his money making porn search, Bomis? Instead he comes up with a "Book of Common Wisdom" for an encyclopedia and has to steal lunch money from kids and defraud investors and the IRS to more »
mysteries
Remind me, what does Jimmy Wales do again?
Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales has the best job ever: Flying around the world on other people's dime, getting drunk with worshipful fanboys, and bedding women who want their online-encyclopedia entries edited. His latest globetrotting gig: cochair of a World Economic Forum event in the Middle East. ("Has Jimmy been asked to attend because of his deep understanding of the cultures and economics of the Middle East, or is it because the organizers think that like Wikipedia, they can edit the history and change things at a whim, without anyone being accountable?" asks former Wikipedia administrator Danny Wool.) How can he afford to pursue such sidelines? More »
the sum of all human knowledge
Jimmy Wales secretly wants you to mock him
Confidantes of Jimmy Wales — like his close friend Sue Gardner, the executive director of his Wikipedia nonprofit — like to portray him as a sensitive soul, easily scarred by all the attention his misdeeds have generated. But the truth? Wales loves it when people talk trash about him. He couldn't wait for Valleywag to out him as Silicon Valley's Casanova. And he's even figured out a way to make money from it. Wikia, his for-profit startup, owns Uncyclopedia, a through-the-looking-glass parody of Wikipedia. The entry on Wales is scathing. It begins: More »
nerdspotting
Even Richard Branson has fallen under Jimmy Wales's spell. The oddly charismatic founder of the world's foremost compendium of ways to say "I ate my cat" is set to attend a global-warming summit on Necker Island, Branson's remote Caribbean getaway. The get-together is so exclusive, Wales told ex-girlfriend Rachel Marsden, that even Al Gore wasn't invited. In the aftermath of l'affaire Marsden and related disclosures about abuses of his position as a Wikipedia board member, it's not clear if Wales is still planning to go. More »
Is Jimmy Wales headed to Richard Branson's Virgin island this weekend?
Even Richard Branson has fallen under Jimmy Wales's spell. The oddly charismatic founder of the world's foremost compendium of ways to say "I ate my cat" is set to attend a global-warming summit on Necker Island, Branson's remote Caribbean getaway. The get-together is so exclusive, Wales told ex-girlfriend Rachel Marsden, that even Al Gore wasn't invited. In the aftermath of l'affaire Marsden and related disclosures about abuses of his position as a Wikipedia board member, it's not clear if Wales is still planning to go. More »
the sum of all human knowledge
Resign, Jimmy Wales, resign
Jimbo, face it: You're not meant to live out your days administrating nonprofits and setting the low bar for lifestyle. You're not Al Gore. You're CEO material, meant to soar like an eagle, fly first-class, bang one bimbo after another, and dine at the finest restaurants. Your for-profit search engine Wikia could totally kill Google and make billions — ignore Marissa Mayer's giggling, we're serious here. Let go, let go of the tedious pro bono, pro-Bono work. Disengage from Wikipedia completely. The latest accusation — that you traded edits for donations — just show how dull fundraising is. The board of directors will thank you for making it safe for Seagate's chairman to donate another hundred grand, but screw them. This is about you, Jimbo. Become what you are.(Photo by AskMen.com)
spam
Wikipedia brands Wikia as spam
A professed goal of Jimmy Wales's for-profit venture, Wikia, is to eliminate spam from search results. But it's reputation on Wikipedia may not help. Users of Wales's online encyclopedia have deemed the entry on his new startup as spam: "This article reads like a news release, or is otherwise written in an overly promotional tone." With Wikia and Wikipedia so closely linked, it's no surprise that volunteer editors would be optimistic about the new search engine. One wonders how long the "Criticism" section for the entry on Wikia will go empty.
wikia
Wikia not so transparent, says U.K. hack
Jimmy Wales declares "transparency" a central pillar of his new startup Wikia. But the entrepreneur has quickly obscured discussion of his business's operations. Guardian journalist Seth Finkelstein says he was "moderated," or restricted from posting, for posing questions about how Wikia runs on a Wikia-controlled mailing list. Finkelstein would like to know exactly how Wikia is being funded and operated, which is not entirely clear currently. And we may never know, based on Wales's definition of transparency. The irascible Wales states, "I will allow through his posts if he wants to contribute positively to our work." That's certainly transparent enough.
wikia
Jimmy Wales wants you to do his work for him
Wikipedia creator Jimmy Wales has opened the curtain on an early version of his for-profit search engine, Wikia. The quality of search results is low, say reviewers — very low. That's because Wales want you, the user, to build the search engine for him. That strategy may have worked with Wikipedia. But building the complex algorithms that power a search engine is not the kind of service I want performed by volunteers. More »
wikia
Wikipedia founder's search engine to launch in 12 days
Wikipedia cofounder Jimmy Wales's for-profit search engine, Wikia Search, will go into a public beta on January 7, according to reports. (Good luck emailing Wales for access to the private beta going on now — he doesn't even answer messages from Bono.) The site — we hear it looks a lot like Facebook — will face competition from Google's Knol. It's also likely to be mentioned in the same breath as Jason Calacanis's people-powered search engine, Mahalo. Which means a lot of heavy breathing will be forthcoming from L.A.
rumormonger
Jimmy Wales to topple Facebook by slinging his own social web?
Not even Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales can escape Facebook fever. He showed off a few screenshots from Wikia's open-source search project while addressing a small gathering in South Africa. What have we here? A Jimmy Wales profile page that looks alarmingly like Facebook. Who knew you could make Facebook's minimalist design even more minimal, and yet somehow render it ugly? The current rumor is Wikia is developing a hybrid of search and social networking that will simultaneously gun down Google and Facebook. Good luck with that, Jimmy. If it doesn't work out for you, you can always change the Wikipedia entry and say it did.
rumormonger
Wikiprofits on Wales's mind?
A tipster is telling us we got it right on why founder Jimmy Wales is moving Wikipedia to San Francisco: dollar bills. Tall stacks of them. Specifically, Wales is looking to tap the deep pockets of Wikipedia benefactor Roger McNamee of Elevation Partners, our source believes. You know, the firm U2 frontman Bono shills for. Our tipster writes that McNamee and Wales have plans to profit from Wikipedia. Curious, since Wikipedia's run by a nonprofit. The tip, after the jump. More »
first you get the money
Wikipedia's move to SF motivated by cold, hard cash
No, really, why did Wikipedia's parent company, the Wikimedia Foundation, announce a move to San Francisco? We joked about founder Jimmy Wales's kimono collection, but on reflection, we realized that Wikipedia's line about moving closer to Asia is utter B.S. Wales is moving the nonprofit from Florida to California so he can spend less time shuttling back and forth between Wikipedia and his for-profit startup Wikia, which is located in San Mateo and has close ties to the online encyclopedia. The Bay Area's wealthy geeks, too, make natural fundraising targets for the nonprofit foundation. Any way you cut it, this move is all about the money.
feuds
Jason Calacanis v. Jimmy Wales
James "Jimmy" Wales, founder of the non-profit, online encyclopedia Wikipedia and not yet developed, commercial search engine Wikia, exchanged barbs with Jason Calacanis, founder of Weblogs, Inc. and the recent human search engine Mahalo, over the holiday on the Wikia mailing lists. Wales says that, since it isn't free, Calacanis' Mahalo "is just not that interesting. I mean, I am sure it is lovely and all, but I really don't care about it." Calacanis, not one to shy from a fight, questions Wales' accuracy, memory, ability to hold his liquor, and apparent ambivalence. Calacanis, a constant self-promoter in need of publicity for Mahalo, and Wales, an idealist who can dismiss commercial concerns in favor of an academic debate, both benefit.
search
Is one of these eight search engines the next Google? (Hint: No.)
NICK DOUGLAS — When I hear someone saying they're the next Google, I wonder: Does this shit happen in other industries? Does Bob sit around Bob's Boise Brewery and say "I'm gonna make the next Bud Light! Yep! Bob Light, baby!" Actually, that probably happens. But that doesn't help the odds of these wannabe Google-killers. The following sites aren't just grad-school projects that wisely focused on a niche. They all think they're the next big thing in search, and they're all wrong. More »
jimmy wales
Wikia's prelaunch victory tour
Bono was complaining that I wasn't returning his e-mails. It turns out, they were in my spam folder.God, I know, will Bono just take the hint already? Enjoy that lead quote from Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales at the start of this Business 2.0 article, because after that, it's a luxuriant fluff job all the way. Much airy speculation about how Wales's for-profit Wikia company will make money, but that's OK, everyone's content for awhile to just feel the love.
jimmy wales
