Wikia CEO on lunacy, air miles and being profitless

2 comments | I like it!
August 17, 2007, 08:38 AM —  IDG News Service — 

Gil Penchina, CEO of Wikia Inc., showed up for a recent interview in a brown T-shirt that said "Wikia" in yellow letters on the front, and "Lunatic" on the back.

"We have a monopoly on lunacy," he said, when asked about the shirt.

While Google Inc. works hard to nurture its image as a whacky, non-corporate company, Wikia seems to manage it quite effortlessly. Started by Wikipedia cofounder Jimmy Wales, the company is not making much money yet, and its executives seem barely interested in doing so. But they do like to work. The company began life building Web sites using its wiki collaboration software where users can discuss their passions, vent opinions and share experiences. So far there are 3,000 sites and around 80,000 Web pages, supported by the 38 people at Wikia.

Somehow that wasn't enough, so the company decided to build a search engine, too. And when they're done with it, they plan to put all the software, algorithms and a constantly-updated index of the Web on the Internet, for use by anyone. For free.

Penchina even showed this reporter an e-mail to a potential investor which started: "To be honest, you'd have to be crazy to invest in us ..." It's not exactly a pitch that most venture capitalists would go for. But sometimes it works, according to Penchina. "Wikia has had several buy-out offers," he said, but he's "not interested."

He sat down recently with IDG News Service to talk about his company and what makes him tick.

IDG News Service: What's the biggest site in your community today?

Gil Penchina: WowWiki [World of Warcraft]. It's where people give advice to each other on the game, how to build guilds, get through parts of the game, that kind of stuff. There are over 30,000 pages, all by contributing members.

IDGNS: Is it a non-profit?

Penchina: WowWiki is a for-profit site. You can barely tell by looking at it, but we sell a very modest amount of adds. We're not a non-profit, we're profit-less. We're not really worried about profit now. We're worried about building revenue. Our theory is we'll make a little money on a lot of topics, instead of a lot of money on a few topics.

IDGNS: How did you get involved with Wikia?

Sign up for ITworld's Daily newsletter
Follow ITworld on Twitter @IT_world

I like it!
Comments

ugg boots

Hey, are u interested in fashion ugg boots? The winter is coming soon, I think you need a pair of classic cardy ugg boots to keep your feet warm, or what do you think about classic tall ugg boots and classic short ugg boots? I like these three series ugg boots so much, how about you?
| reply
peer-to-peer

jfruh
Apple syncing patent can't come soon enough

pasmith
New Twitter features borrow from 3rd party clients

Esther Schindler
Open Source Changes the Software Acquisition Process

mikelgan
How to set up continuous podcast play on the new iTunes

David Strom
Five important Windows 7 mobility features

sjvn
Guard your Wi-Fi for your own sake                        

Sandra Henry-Stocker
Grepping on Whole Words

 

Sidekick: The Good News & the Bad News
Either way you look at it Microsoft Data Center management did not follow standards or best practices in this failure. In which case it makes me wonder more about the outsourcing of corporate data much less personal data.
- mburton325

Join the conversation here

The Daily Tip

The Daily TipQuick, practical advice for IT pros. Made fresh daily.

Hot tips:

Want to cash in on your IT savvy? Send your tip to tips@itworld.com. If we post it, we'll send you a $25 Amazon e-gift card.

Newsletters

Subscribe to ITWORLD TODAY and receive the latest IT news and analysis.

I would like to receive offers via email from ITworld partners.
By clicking submit you agree to the terms and conditions outlined in ITworld's privacy policy.
Featured Sponsor

AISO founders envisioned a Web hosting company that was environmentally friendly. While the company employed energy-efficient innovations like solar panels, its infrastructure produced unacceptable power and cooling requirements. Find out how AISO leveraged AMD technology to overcome their challenge in this case study white paper.

In this whitepaper, Scalar explores the opportunity to change the landscape with respect to mission critical databases built around Oracle. Leveraging technologies such as Linux, high-end commodity processing power and Oracle RAC technology to architect, design, build and maintain database infrastructure that delivers maximum availability, reliability and performance at a fraction of traditional cost.

On a typical day, weather.com, the Web site for The Weather Channel in Atlanta, serves up between 15 million and 20 million page views. But in September 2004, when back-to-back hurricanes ransacked Florida, the peak traffic on one day more than tripled: over 70 million page views by more than 7 million unique visitors. Read the full success story now.

Marketplace