Warcraft and Twilight Fans Make Wikia Profitable
According to this year's Comscore stats, consumer publishing platform Wikia has surpassed DIY social network competitor Ning for monthly unique visitors. Since July 2008 the company's traffic has more than doubled from 2.8 million to 6.5 million unique US visitors per month. Despite abandoning Wikia search in early March, it seems Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales has built another great company. As of this evening, Wikia's CEO Gil Penchina is announcing the company's profitability due to its custom sponsorships program.
Says Penchina, "I'm sick and tired of hearing about these dead pooled companies. In this type of economy we're excited to announce our growth and profitability. I think we're about to see a bunch of success stories. Silicon Valley is finally getting its mojo back."
Best known for its "enthusiast" wikis, Wikia hosts more than 50,000 fan sites including the Star Wars Wookieepedia, Harry Potter Wiki, Twilight Saga Wiki and World of Warcraft WoWWiki. In addition to some of the larger fan sites, Penchina also points to the Cannon Hacker Development Wiki, Recipes Wiki and Pet Diabetes Wiki as great examples of Wikia contributors.
While Wikia hosts nearly 3 million pages of content with a number of niche community sites, it's the fan pages that drive the majority of advertising and marketing revenue. Wikia's small team of less than 10 sales staff create packages that consist of everything from branded banner ads to embedded shows and contests. In addition to sponsors like World of Warcraft, a number of television studios are also in partnership talks.
Says Penchina, "In many cases, these sites are like small franchises and the editors are really dedicated. The input we've had from editors regarding advertising are suggestions I generally agree with." In the World of Warcraft Wiki the community has asked that no advertisements be permitted that might negatively affect game play. For this reason, Penchina's team does not allow advertisements for WoW gold.
By providing an environment where die hard fans and premium brands can coexist, Wikia is doing a great job maintaining its authenticity while also turning a profit. While the service has struggled to establish itself as a separate brand from its Wikipedia origins, it appears that the fan communities have done everything they can to make it a success from the ground up.
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The power of fans!
Oh that was an awesome news Dana Oshiro.. I really dont know about this so thanks for providing this nice article overhere. Actually i am a big fan of Warcraft so its really a very nice new for me, thanks again Dana....
So, where is the actual hard data from Gil Penchina? All I know is that if they are posting (let's say) $100,000 in quarterly profit... that means it's going to take 35 years for the initial venture investors' $14,000,000 to be recuperated.
I think this is just a whiter shade of smoke, and a more polished array of mirrors.
WoWWiki users didn't say no to ads that would negatively affect gameplay (not sure how ads on a wiki could do that any way). WoWWiki needs to maintain a good relationship with Blizzard (maker of World of Warcraft) who is against WoW gold ads, so WoWWiki follows suit. Just a clarification.
- James
Many players like Wang Kang Yi, pays real cash for virtual good, to quicken their progress in online games. The game Gyromancer is rumored to become the most addictive game of all time, which is hard to believe in the era of World of Warcraft. PopCap Games and Square Enix are releasing the game, and it's slated for release in 2010. The game is essentially Bejeweled with a fantasy/MMORPG and a few additions. (You know, elves and warlocks and talking trees, that kind of thing.) Essentially, teams of players meet online and solve puzzles akin to Bejeweled in order to complete aspects of game play. (Essentially – fill in this crossword puzzle and this bad guy blows up!) Still, Bejeweled is one of the most played games of all time. This means that a lot of people will line up payday loans to buy Gyromancer and keep it up online.
World of Warcraft WoWWiki has been a great resource for fans and I'm delighted to hear Wikia is on the rise. Thanks.