Wikia Search
The business, the turning points, and the decisions behind them.
01 / WHAT IT BUILT
What the company did
Wikia Search was a short-lived free and open-source web search engine launched by Wikia Inc., the for-profit wiki-hosting company founded by Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales and Angela Beesley. Launched as a 'public alpha' on January 7, 2008, it tried to port the Wikipedia model to search: anyone could add, delete, rate and comment on results, with the community determining rankings - a human-powered alternative to Google.
02 / Wikia Search FAILURE REASONS
Failure reasons
User adoption fell short of expectations. In a weak economy, its owner was unwilling to keep funding the long development path and redirected resources to other Wikia projects.
03 / EVENT HISTORY
Events in the structured record
- Launch
Wikia Search launches as a 'public alpha' on January 7, 2008; the roll-out is widely criticized, though a June 2008 second version is better received.
- Shutdown
On March 31, 2009, Jimmy Wales shuts down Wikia Search, citing low usage and the poor economy; users are redirected to Wikianswers.
04 / CONTEMPORARY REBUILD ASSESSMENT
Difficulty of rebuilding this project today
Material for this section is being gathered and checked. It will appear here once ready.
Overall assessment: Not completed
05 / CAUSAL CHAIN
How the factors connect
- 01
On January 7, 2008, Wikia Inc. launched Wikia Search as a 'public alpha' - an open-source, community-edited web search engine.
- 02
The engine never attracted more than a trickle of users (about 10,000 unique visitors a month), and Google launched its own wiki-style SearchWiki feature.
- 03
On March 31, 2009, Jimmy Wales shut down Wikia Search, citing low usage and the poor economy, and redirected users to Wikianswers.