As with everything, this is money oriented... I can understand that as well, I have had some business education myself, and a bit of a sense for it to. But what about an alternate method of trying to generate profit?
There are 3 sectors in the category of wiki hosting (not web hosting, hosting of MediaWiki). 1) The Generic Wiki (Coverage over the wide subjects, ie: An Encyclopedia), which Wikimedia nicely has covered. 2) The Community Topic (Dedicated to a specific topic, and run by a community motivated towards the topic, rather than having a head controlling it), which Wikia to has covered. 3) And the Group Wiki, one owned by a small group. This category is not completely covered, there are a lot of different hosts in this category, but there is no single one that has enough quality to compare with Wikimedia's or even Wikia's support. (ScribbleWiki comes close, however they are lacking in some basic features that their consumers are asking for...) Rather than trying to squeeze ad money out of the 2nd sector, why doesn't Wikia, as a company divide up into two branches. One branch (all existing staff) covering the 2nd sector, and a second branch targeting the 3rd sector. One branch targets the 2nd sector aiming primarily to further knowledge as does the Wikimedia Foundation. While the other branch targets the 3rd sector aiming primarily towards profit as that sector is primarily about. Such a business strategy could keep with the Open initiative that Wikia started out with, whilst still catering to the supporters who want profit out of Wikia. I've been doing a fair bit of looking into that 3rd sector. There is actually a fair bit of features and other methods a new host could come out with in that area to put themselves ahead of the others and take the top point in the market. Primarily because it was an area I was planning on getting into, originally the service was going to be titled Shout Wiki, though for a few unfortunate reasons I won't go into to much detail with, I'm opting for a new name and slogan. http://nadir-point.com/wiki/Wiki_Hosting Not to vulture, but I know of a few staring business strategies and features to roll out (Actually, I have the basis for a good Farm system... Even a Permissions management UI for wiki owners), there are plenty of things Wikia could do in the 3rd sector to earn some profit. Even with a few notable communities, some moved to Wikia from elsewhere because of the good hosting plan. However some of those may even still have a few people who used to manage it, some of those communities may prefer a donation basis rather than a ad basis (as Wikimedia is based on) and actually have the ability to support such a move. Some Wikia communities might wish to move to the 3rd sector, which would benefit Wikia's profit even more than a ad based profit margin. Just a thought though. ~Daniel Friesen(Dantman) of: -The Nadir-Point Group (http://nadir-point.com) --It's Wiki-Tools subgroup (http://wiki-tools.com) --Games-G.P.S. (http://ggps.org) -And Wikia ACG on Wikia.com (http://wikia.com/wiki/Wikia_ACG) _______________________________________________ Wikia-l mailing list [email protected] http://lists.wikia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikia-l
