Wikia: Making Money Yet?, Or a really bad business model? Options Rating

[thekohser]

New data on this front:

Fan Wiki Platform Wikia is now Profitable
by Lucian Parfeni, Web News Editor

You will want to note the data (read, "lies") that Wikia received 21 million monthly visitors in December and about 2.7 billion page views. That's about 125 views per visitor. Think that's reasonable? Consider that Facebook and YouTube get about 15 views per visitor. Yeah, right.

It also looks like the first comment left is by someone screwed by Gil Penchina. The second comment, if it slips through moderation, will be equally damning.

Furthermore, TechCrunch describes the Wikia moment in the sun as "a hiring spree". My comments have made it through there, at least for the time being.

[thekohser]

My contact at Compete.com ComScore delivered me the following data for Wikia.com, worldwide, in the month of December:


20,500,000 unique visitors

379,000,000 page views


Yet, TechCrunch is saying "2.7 billion" page views.

What gives?


I estimate that this would translate into about $150,000 per month in ad revenues.

This post has been edited by thekohser: Fri 12th February 2010, 8:14pm

[thekohser]

Michael Arrington quietly corrected the TechCrunch article to read "380 million" page views, with no comment or editor's note.

[thekohser]

Since I'm the only one talking here at this point, this may be throw-away info, but...

My contact at comScore further commented about this matter:

Definitions are the key here. Alexa shows daily page views per user, not monthly per user. [comScore had] an average page view per usage day that might be more synonymous to that number:

Facebook: 42.4
YouTube: 21.7
Wikia: 8.2

That said, our [numbers] are still higher than Alexa. However, Alexa does not mention if their measure is page views per usage day, or just per day. I suspect that it is per day, rather than usage day, since they can't follow visitors. If they take total page views and divide by users and divide by 30 days in a month, that's why they are lower -- when I do that with our numbers, I get 13.7 for Facebook, not unlike the 15 page views Alexa shows. Ours is a more precise measure of how individuals use the site based on their days of activity and theirs is a generalized measure that understates usage intensity.

We've confirmed we are correctly capturing page views on Facebook, YouTube, and Wikia.

So, it looks like Wikia's page views per user's usage day is about 3/8ths that of YouTube, and about 1/5th that of Facebook.

Alexa also informs that about 33% of visitors to Wikia.com leave immediately after looking once at the arrival page (the "bounce rate"). Compare Wikipedia Review.com at about 46%. Facebook, 12%. YouTube, 21%. YouPorn, 8%.

[Jon Awbrey]

Alexa also informs that about 33% of visitors to Wikia.com leave immediately after looking once at the arrival page (the "bounce rate"). Compare Wikipedia Review.com at about 46%. Facebook, 12%. YouTube, 21%. YouPorn, 8%.

I think that flashing red banner is part of the problem.

Some days it pushes me to the edge of an e-pileptic fit.

Jon

[NuclearWarfare]

So, it looks like Wikia's page views per user's usage day is about 3/8ths that of YouTube, and about 1/5th that of Facebook.

Alexa also informs that about 33% of visitors to Wikia.com leave immediately after looking once at the arrival page (the "bounce rate"). Compare Wikipedia Review.com at about 46%. Facebook, 12%. YouTube, 21%. YouPorn, 8%.

Consider though that most people who go to Facebook or YouPorn know exactly why they are going there. What's the bounce rate for other major wikis or specialized encyclopedias?

[thekohser]

I think that flashing red banner is part of the problem.

Some days it pushes me to the edge of an e-pileptic fit.

Jon

The flashing red text is only on the main page, and I'd estimate that the main page gets only about 8%-10% StatCounter tells me it gets less than 1% of initial landing page activity.

Consider though that most people who go to Facebook or YouPorn know exactly why they are going there. What's the bounce rate for other major wikis or specialized encyclopedias?

NewWorldEncyclopedia.org, 70% bounce rate.

Citizendium.org, 45% bounce rate.

Wikipedia.org, 46% bounce rate, same as Wikipedia Review.

This post has been edited by thekohser: Wed 17th February 2010, 2:12am

[NotARepublican55]

I don't think I've read anything on Wikia that I couldn't find on Wikipedia (usually much better written, even if that's not saying a whole lot). Well other than maybe Uncyclopedia (and it mostly sucks).

[Trick cyclist]

I don't think I've read anything on Wikia that I couldn't find on Wikipedia

Thats because Spankingwiki got thrown off and Furrywiki left in a huff or something.

Uncyclopedia (and it mostly sucks).

Sh. Thats Someys fault.

[tarantino]

One type of wiki that's driving a lot of traffic to Wikia is the linkfarm. Two of the largest are websitewiki.wikia.com and websites.wikia.com. Between them they have 1.4 million pages, and as a rough guestimate, generate 1-2% of Wikia's traffic. Typically each of their pages contain a description, a thumbnail picture of a home page, links and ads. Like most linkfarms they're chock full of porn.
http://websites.wikia.com/index.php?title=Category:Erotic
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en...rn&start=0&sa=N


Every page on websitewiki.wikia.com redirects to websitewiki.de and every photo on websites.wikia.com is hosted on websitewiki.de, but it's mostly a redirect by domain name only because it still uses the same IP, mail servers and name server as all the other Wikia sites.

Here's a few examples out of the thousands of the hard core porn ads on Wikia.

CODE

http://websites.wikia.com/wiki/007pornvideos.com
http://websitewiki.wikia.com/Animalromance.com
http://websitewiki.wikia.com/Girls-fucking-guys-strap-on.com

[EricBarbour]

Wikipedia says they have 42 employees. Even if these are mostly low-paid, Polish slave workers, let's say the average employee compensation and benefits costs Wikia about $2,500 per month

In San Francisco? You can't hire a busboy for $2500/month.
Maybe more like $3500-4000 for office drones.

Servers and bandwidth can't be more than about $2,000 a month. Rent for office space might be $15,000 a month, right?

Bandwidth is probably more than that, even in a cheap offshore serverfarm. Rent is likely to be more than that too. SF is even more expensive than Manhattan for some commercial properties, because it's "hipper".

Michael Arrington quietly corrected the TechCrunch article to read "380 million" page views, with no comment or editor's note.

Never, EVER trust anything you see on TechCrunch. Arrington is a complete scum.

So, best case scenario right now, Wikia has a profit of $180,000 per month. Best case. It's more likely in the $50,000 range, but we'll leave it at that. It still took about 5 years and $14,000,000 invested to get them to this point. Probably could have done much better with opening a fun Mongolian BBQ restaurant in Redwood City.

The average 200-seat nightclub in SF makes more than $50k/month.
If this is typical of what Wikia is netting, they are in trouble.

I think Tarantino is right.
They are basically just another skeezy linkfarm, full of porn links.
That's where the really fast money is.

This post has been edited by EricBarbour: Fri 9th April 2010, 10:26pm

[Milton Roe]

I don't think I've read anything on Wikia that I couldn't find on Wikipedia (usually much better written, even if that's not saying a whole lot).

Obviously you don't have a lust for the Klingon Wiki.

[thekohser]

Wikipedia says they have 42 employees. Even if these are mostly low-paid, Polish slave workers, let's say the average employee compensation and benefits costs Wikia about $2,500 per month

In San Francisco? You can't hire a busboy for $2500/month.
Maybe more like $3500-4000 for office drones.

Not all the Wikia employees are in the Bay Area. Quite literally, many of them are Poles working for Jimbo, from Poznań, Poland.

I suppose it's just a "coincidence" that Wikimania 2010 will be held in Gdansk, about a 4 hour drive from Poznań.

[thekohser]

The latest business report from the Big Jimbo at Wikia, Inc.:

What do you see as the revenue potential for this type of business?

I don’t know. We’ve been at it for several years. We’re profitable but barely profitable. We’re focused on the advertising model. So, who knows? -- Jimmy Wales

[SB_Johnny]

The latest business report from the Big Jimbo at Wikia, Inc.:

What do you see as the revenue potential for this type of business?

I don’t know. We’ve been at it for several years. We’re profitable but barely profitable. We’re focused on the advertising model. So, who knows? -- Jimmy Wales

Apparently Jimmy doesn't actually use web forums much, or at least know how they're managed:

Very often the problem with a lot of message boards is that the problem users take over after some time because all you can do is yell at them if they’re misbehaving, whereas in the wiki world it’s traditional to block people if they’re not behaving themselves.

While there's a rather large difference of scale, I don't think I've ever been on a web forum that had quite as much trouble shutting up the unwelcome.

[thekohser]

Who is this guy about to get banned from the Foundation-l mailing list?

I hate the way wikia looks, and therefore have an aversion to contributing in any way to
its progress. ...Wikia is like the no good jerk up the street.

[Peter Damian]

Who is this guy about to get banned from the Foundation-l mailing list?

I hate the way wikia looks, and therefore have an aversion to contributing in any way to
its progress. ...Wikia is like the no good jerk up the street.

I noticed he (or she) spelled 'its' correctly.

[A User]

http://www.thepiazza.org.uk/bb/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=4791

Two major Wikia RPG wikis have split off - WoWWiki and PathfinderWiki.

[Milton Roe]

Who is this guy about to get banned from the Foundation-l mailing list?

I hate the way wikia looks, and therefore have an aversion to contributing in any way to
its progress. ...Wikia is like the no good jerk up the street.

I noticed he (or she) spelled 'its' correctly.

Bruhahahah. Gotta be Kohs, then, as there are only a couple of dozen people who can.

[Abd]

I noticed he (or she) spelled 'its' correctly.

Bruhahahah. Gotta be Kohs, then, as there are only a couple of dozen people who can.

It's "its."

Maybe it's Durova, or Durova's its/it's demon. Which seems to have gone lost. Was it Durova?