Showing that wikis can be a viable business

Feb 8, 2010 09:45 GMT  ·  By

There's money to be made in wikis, at least that's what Wikia is now claiming. Wikia is a wiki platform service offering anyone the possibility to start a new wiki centering on almost any topic, from Star Wars, to Twilight, to gardening. Even if you're not familiar with the site, you've probably landed on one of the wikis hosted by it on more than one occasion. Wikia was cofounded by Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, a man who knows a thing or two about wikis, and it now says, according to TechCrunch, that it reached true profitability.

The company had already reached an 'operational' profitability, i.e. it made more money in a month than it spent, last year, but it is now claiming that it's profitable in the strict accounting sense of the word. It's not clear if this means overall profitability, the site has been running at a loss since 2004 after all, but it's clearly a good sign for Wikia and wikis as a viable business in general.

2009 has been a very good year for the company, according to CEO Gil Penchina, and Wikia has increased its revenue four times while costs have stayed roughly the same. He didn't disclose any actual numbers, but the company is ready to expand and is now looking to hire several people to bolster its team. Wikia employs about 40 people at the moment and is hiring a dozen more.

That's not a lot of people for a site which hosts, by its own account, well over 50,000 independent wikis, but that's the beauty of user-generated content. The site relies on its users to provide it with the content, but the strategy seems to be paying off although it took a while to get here. Wikia got 21 million monthly visitors in December and about 2.7 billion page views. It raised $14 million in funding so far.