Wikia, a profit-oriented company set up by Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales, is aiming for a public listing in the long term.
”For Wikipedia itself I think we will always be a charity … but for Wikia, my for-profit company, yes, absolutely,” Wales told Dow Jones Newswires on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos last week.
Wales said Wikia has funding from venture capital, and seeking an initial public offering ”is sort of the path we are going to take”. But he added he had no timeframe for such a listing for the San Mateo, California-based Wikia right now.
”We are a long way from that. Especially with the market turmoil in the past two days, I don’t think anyone is going public for a while,” he said.
While the Wikimedia Foundation — the entity behind Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia that anyone can contribute to and edit — is non-profit, Wikia wants to make money.
Founded in 2004, Wikia has offered an ad-based service that lets groups, like college clubs, create their own ”wikis”, or web pages that are edited collaboratively.
Wales is also launching a search engine, Wikia Search, which will compete with those of Google, among others. — Sapa-AP