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 Wikia meltdown: layoffs, ...the numbers don't look promising either.... |
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| UseOnceAndDestroy |
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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. |
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| Alison |
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Skinny Cow!
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QUOTE(Crestatus @ Mon 20th October 2008, 3:43pm) 
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. |
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| Milton Roe |
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Known alias of J. Random Troll
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QUOTE(UseOnceAndDestroy @ Mon 20th October 2008, 3:49pm) QUOTE(the fieryangel @ Mon 20th October 2008, 9:13pm)
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: QUOTE(One @ Mon 20th October 2008, 1:44pm)
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. |
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| everyking |
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Postmaster
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QUOTE(UseOnceAndDestroy @ Mon 20th October 2008, 11:41pm) 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. |
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| Somey |
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Can't actually moderate (or even post)
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QUOTE(Milton Roe @ Mon 20th October 2008, 6:05pm) 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... |
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| dogbiscuit |
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Could you run through Verifiability not Truth once more?
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QUOTE(Somey @ Tue 21st October 2008, 12:33am)
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. |
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| anthony |
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Postmaster
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QUOTE(Somey @ Mon 20th October 2008, 11:33pm) QUOTE(Milton Roe @ Mon 20th October 2008, 6:05pm) 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. QUOTE So far, there are two ways Wikia has made money - advertising and venture capital/angel investment: - Angela Beesley, June 7, 2006That quote explains the real business plan. QUOTE
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: |
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| The Adversary |
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CT (Check Troll)
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QUOTE(UseOnceAndDestroy @ Tue 21st October 2008, 11:52am) 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." (IMG: smilys0b23ax56/default/biggrin.gif) The wikia staff-page loads fine for me- Is the whole technical team located in Poland? |
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| Sarcasticidealist |
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Head exploded.
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QUOTE(the fieryangel @ Tue 21st October 2008, 9:17am) 1. Greg Kohser
2. Jimbo
3. Rachel Marsden, who wins the Miss Congeniality award for her post : I think it's likely that the comment from "Rachel Marsden" is actually a troll. Jimbo's strikes me as about fifty-fifty likely to be genuine (you'd think he'd contact the writer privately, at least in the first instance, or go the full-fledged "letter to the editor" route), while Greg's is almost certainly genuine. There doesn't appear to be any meaningful authentication process for setting up a commenting account, so we shouldn't assume that people are who they say they are. |
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| UseOnceAndDestroy |
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QUOTE(cyofee @ Tue 21st October 2008, 5:37pm)
Looks like another source is rapidly descending from reliable to unreliable.
Yep - and undermining the source looks like a fairly desperate defence from ol' Jimbo. The best Wikia can do is try to reduce the story to dickering about the number that has been sacked - and hope that's interpreted as "everything's all right, then". In the absence of some inside information, we don't know the actual number. The rebuttal on the Reg story is carefully worded on this point - "recently let go less than 10% of its salaried employees". Interesting adjective they have there. So...err...that's 4 salaried, and a bunch of contractors? How are the Polish guys employed? No one's in a hurry to update to http://www.wikia.com/wiki/Wikia_Staff, unsurprisingly. |
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| anthony |
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Postmaster
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QUOTE(Milton Roe @ Tue 21st October 2008, 9:28pm) QUOTE(GlassBeadGame @ Tue 21st October 2008, 12:35pm) QUOTE(UseOnceAndDestroy @ Tue 21st October 2008, 1:04pm)
"recently let go less than 10% of its salaried employees"
Yep, anyone who ever dealt with Wikipedians would smell that weasel word a mile away. Anyone who has dealt with corporate lawyers. A lie not by the actual statement, but rather by its implication and misdirection. Every time. If you punch a timeclock, or you're any kind of consultant, you're not a salaried employee. "Well, just a second there, professor. We, uh, we fixed the *glitch*. So he won't be receiving a paycheck anymore, so it'll just work itself out naturally." |
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