Wikia meltdown: layoffs, ...the numbers don't look promising either.... Options

[the fieryangel]

Or so sez Valleywag :

A source who has seen Wikia's numbers says the company is experiencing "a hemorrhaging of cash circa 1999" — losses, in other words, like the first generation of dotcoms.

Everybody's doing layoffs these days, but venture capital is becoming scarce....It's probably not a good sign.

Jimbo really needs to have some professional stills done by a good photographer and ditch these candid shots. The one on this article is particularly bad.

[One]

Offices in San Francisco and New York--and Poland!?

I don't understand why so many industries feel compelled to have offices in the most expensive places on earth. The world is outsourcing, but many firms wanna pay rent in New York and London instead of Topeka, Kansas and Czechoslovakia. I don't get it.

And yes, that's a terrible photo.

This post has been edited by One: Mon 20th October 2008, 8:45pm

[Somey]

Hmm... I guess this might explain their recent decision to subsume Uncyclopedia's domain name.

I'm amazed Wikia has managed to hold out this long, considering what their business model is. Maybe they've finally realized that "free content" means nobody gets paid...?

[GlassBeadGame]

Hmm... I guess this might explain their recent decision to subsume Uncyclopedia's domain name.

I'm amazed Wikia has managed to hold out this long, considering what their business model is. Maybe they've finally realized that "free content" means nobody gets paid...?

Boy, if we only had a creative and entrepreneurially minded trusted poster with a business perspective to provide analysis, comment, parody and satire of these events. I guess there are bigger fish to fry than Mr. Wales.

[Krimpet]

Offices in San Francisco and New York--and Poland!?

I don't understand why so many industries feel compelled to have offices in the most expensive places on earth. The world is outsourcing, but many firms wanna pay rent in New York and London instead of Topeka, Kansas and Czechoslovakia. I don't get it.

And yes, that's a terrible photo.

Cities in the Sun Belt - Dallas/Fort Worth, Charlotte, Phoenix, etc. have all been growing explosively for this very reason. (I can't fathom at all why the Foundation decided to move to San Francisco from St. Petersburg - most businesses and organizations would be doing the exact opposite.)

[UseOnceAndDestroy]

Wikia "communities" would be well advised to start dumping their content to safe local backups right now - web-based ventures that go titsup can lose their internet presence overnight, and it sure would be a shame to see all those words sitting on disconnected servers.

Meanwhile, the story works its way up the wikipedian ladder of reliability:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-100704...tag=mncol;posts

- it'll be fun to see how long the labourers can avoid posting a single word about it on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikia, which still noticably lacks anything that looks like a "criticisms" or "controversies" section.

[Crestatus]

Sometimes, the "prestige" of a city is more important than the economics, which is why San Francisco is so attractive.

[UseOnceAndDestroy]

Jimbo really needs to have some professional stills done by a good photographer and ditch these candid shots. The one on this article is particularly bad.

I've seen worse....

[Alison]

Sometimes, the "prestige" of a city is more important than the economics, which is why San Francisco is so attractive.

Maybe so, but the prices for housing and real-estate here in the Bay Area are just ludicrous. You couldn't get a doghouse to rent for under $2,000 these days. Commuting from the South Bay to SF is just crazy and I imagine the staffers who moved from Florida to SF must have seen their rents and costs of living go through the roof. These days, nobody needs physical proximity to *anywhere*, really, not least of all in that kind of biz.

[Milton Roe]

Jimbo really needs to have some professional stills done by a good photographer and ditch these candid shots. The one on this article is particularly bad.

I've seen worse....

How about:

Offices in San Francisco and New York--and Poland!?

I don't understand why so many industries feel compelled to have offices in the most expensive places on earth. The world is outsourcing, but many firms wanna pay rent in New York and London instead of Topeka, Kansas and Czechoslovakia. I don't get it.

And yes, that's a terrible photo.

I think they fled Florida fearing some attack of the Bible Belt kiddie-porn-killers. San Francisco is the most liberal city of one of the most liberal states. Same can be said for NYC, NY.

And as for Federal US law? Well, that's where Poland comes in.

Somey: Wikia does have a business plan, as they run ads. Alas, they don't have WP's content. They steal what they can, but it's not enough.

[dogbiscuit]

Wikia lays off 30 percent of staff

As an old colleague of mind used to say (amusingly for the first 40 or 50 times)

"How many people work here?"

"Oh, about half."

[everyking]

Wikia "communities" would be well advised to start dumping their content to safe local backups right now - web-based ventures that go titsup can lose their internet presence overnight, and it sure would be a shame to see all those words sitting on disconnected servers.

Meanwhile, the story works its way up the wikipedian ladder of reliability:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-100704...tag=mncol;posts

- it'll be fun to see how long the labourers can avoid posting a single word about it on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikia, which still noticably lacks anything that looks like a "criticisms" or "controversies" section.

I'd recommend that those communities get together, found an alternative project, and move their content there. I think the idea of Wikia is great (as much as it annoys me to see people suggesting that encyclopedia content should be deleted on the grounds that Wikia exists as a potential home for it), but even aside from these apparent financial problems, it would be prudent to take steps to get far away from Jimbo.

[Somey]

Somey: Wikia does have a business plan, as they run ads. Alas, they don't have WP's content. They steal what they can, but it's not enough.

I didn't say they didn't have a business plan, I was just pointing out that their business model (if you can call it that) has been shown time and time again to be unprofitable. What's more, people in the media are finally starting to twig - for the second time in less than a decade - to the fact that loads of venture capital, which would have been very useful for investment in things like alternative energy development, robotics, and all sorts of new "green" technologies, is being poured down a vast array of internet-based drain pipes - ultimately producing practically nothing of real use, and never to be seen again. (Not to mention the loss of tax revenue.)

How many times are the Western economies, the US in particular, going to be taken down this road by idiots with too much money, the sort of people who think they can take a couple of afternoons to set up some website that will supposedly turn them into millionaires, before everyone else wises up and figures out that huge wealth disparities are a bad thing for everyone? Maybe the recent tanking of the stock market will finally knock some sense into them, but I'm not going to be holding my breath!

Sorry, I got a little carried away there. I'll go take a chill pill and try to calm down...

[dogbiscuit]

I didn't say they didn't have a business plan, I was just pointing out that their business model (if you can call it that) has been shown time and time again to be unprofitable. What's more, people in the media are finally starting to twig - for the second time in less than a decade - to the fact that loads of venture capital, which would have been very useful for investment in things like alternative energy development, robotics, and all sorts of new "green" technologies, is being poured down a vast array of internet-based drain pipes - ultimately producing practically nothing of real use, and never to be seen again. (Not to mention the loss of tax revenue.)

How many times are the Western economies, the US in particular, going to be taken down this road by idiots with too much money, who think they can take a couple of afternoons to set up some website that will supposedly turn them into millionaires, before people wise up and figure out that huge wealth disparities are a bad thing for everyone? Maybe the recent tanking of the stock market will finally knock some sense into them, but I'm not going to be holding my breath!

Sorry, I got a little carried away there. I'll go take a chill pill and try to calm down...

I had an involvement with a dot com. We had a fairly sound business model (ok, qualify that - for a dot com business - it was ahead of when you could expect the majority of parents to have an internet connection), in fact some 6 or 7 years on I've used a similar idea for real. We wanted to do a school parent communication site, earning money by micro-commissions on payments for school goods, trips and whatever, allowing parents to get their school letters within the same term they were sent and so on.

We worked out that to get our toe in the water, we needed £250k and that would let us launch in about a year, allowing for a proper test with a couple of local friendly schools. We had a contact at Ernst Young. EY wanted to give us more money than we asked for but we had to go from scrappy bit of paper to live in 3 months. They also thought that not re-mortgaging our houses showed a complete lack of back bone. We turned it down - it was clear that EY did not have a clue about what it would take to make the project successful - they were only interested in getting their commission from the VCs and walking away. I got a good idea of how corrupt the dot com boom was through that experience.

[anthony]

Somey: Wikia does have a business plan, as they run ads. Alas, they don't have WP's content. They steal what they can, but it's not enough.

I didn't say they didn't have a business plan, I was just pointing out that their business model (if you can call it that) has been shown time and time again to be unprofitable.

Unprofitable to the investors. I'm sure the co-founders are making plenty off of it.

So far, there are two ways Wikia has made money - advertising and venture capital/angel investment: - Angela Beesley, June 7, 2006

That quote explains the real business plan.

LOL, the last time I heard of venture capital/angel investment referred to as "making money" was back during the dot com boom. - Anthony DiPierro, June 7, 2006

This post has been edited by anthony: Tue 21st October 2008, 1:59am

[GlassBeadGame]

So far, there are two ways Wikia has made money - advertising and venture capital/angel investment: - Angela Beesley, June 7, 2006

That quote explains the real business plan.

Now that should be in the prospectus. I believe that a business that makes money from attracting further investors is called a Ponzi scheme.

[Krimpet]

We already saw the rise and fall of dozens of advertising-supported free web hosts circa 2002; they were proven to be nigh-unprofitable. (Anyone remember FortuneCity, Xoom, or NBCi? Probably not. ) It's not surprising free wiki hosting like Wikia would go the same way - it's like those free web hosts of yore, but with unlimited storage space and bandwidth.

[tarantino]

Perhaps their investors were browsing Wikia, and after landing on "Truth in Numbers: The Wikipedia Story", came to a sad realization. The template on top of it's main page for the three weeks that ended shortly before the layoffs, announced

WIKIPEDIA IS A DANGEROUS CULT
*** Do not get sucked in. ***
BE VERY WARY

[UseOnceAndDestroy]

El Reg provokes a response - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/10/21/wikia_layoffs/. Obviously someone thinks they're a "reliable source".

Less than 10% sacked is now the claim. That would be 4 people, then.

I'd like to work out which heads are rolling, but I can't get the page at http://www.wikia.com/wiki/Wikia_Staff to load. Probably just a network hiccup, I'm sure...

[The Adversary]

El Reg provokes a response - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/10/21/wikia_layoffs/. Obviously someone thinks they're a "reliable source".

Less than 10% sacked is now the claim. That would be 4 people, then.

I'd like to work out which heads are rolling, but I can't get the page at http://www.wikia.com/wiki/Wikia_Staff to load. Probably just a network hiccup, I'm sure...

Cade Metz is just beautiful: "Sad news for Jimbo Wales: He may not get that personal jet." The wikia staff-page loads fine for me- Is the whole technical team located in Poland?