The announcement will come as part of Wales' opening keynote at the Digital Hollywood Content Summit in New York on Wednesday morning.

The company said it has a number of features in store for its users:

• Integration of social tools to let users share their edits and contributions with friends
• Highlighting of top editors so readers can see who created the content and learn more about them
• Surfacing photos and videos more broadly on content pages and including images in search results
• Radically improved content editing via a new, easy to use, visual editor
• Fan activity modules such as real-time streams, polls, top 10 lists, and achievement badges
• New opportunities for brands to get involved in the conversation with their fans

The move to add a more mainstream social layer to the wiki breaks down some of the barriers that kept wiki communities more protected and hidden from outside eyes. It also helps to bring the wiki into the modern age of the mainstream, social Web, while potentially increasing the number of users. Wikia was founded in 2004, yet currently boasts just more than 2 million registered users.

"The idea is to move into new markets, attract new people - people who traditionally thought wikis would be too complicated to use," Wales told the Guardian. "Wikia 2.0 marries the traditional wiki tools that have been so successful with newer social and editing features."

While we can't imagine that a similar move would be warmly accepted by the community over at Wikipedia, we can't help but wonder if World of Warcraft players haven't simply been looking for another game to play all along. On a Web where every page you hit is increasingly socialized, where every act somehow achieves something badge-worthy, it's the logical next step.

Last week, Fox News started asking representatives at companies that have donated to the group's Wikimedia Foundation for comment on their discovery that Wikimedia Commons had a large collection of photographs that could be described as pornography, even as child pornography. On hearing this, Wales apparently began unilaterally to delete images from the group's servers. This set off a great argument among the encyclopedia's editors.

Wales said as much in this discussion thread.

"In the interest of encouraging this discussion to be about real philosophical/content issues, rather than be about me and how quickly I acted, I've just now removed virtually all permissions to actually do things from the "Founder" flag. I even removed my ability to edit semi-protected pages! (I've kept permissions related to 'viewing' things.)

I do not want to be a tyrant or dictator. I do not want us to fight about that kind of thing, as it's really a distraction from our work."

The widely quoted Fox story was inspired by Larry Sanger, a co-founder currently on the outs with the organization, who reported the hosting of child porn by the organization to the FBI.

Wikimedia Commons, the "free media repository" associated with the encyclopedia, pursues a policy of no censorship and of educational emphasis. The presence of sex and drug-related content has been a thread of debate among editors seeking to hew to these policy points. This "kerfuffle" is just the latest and one of the more dramatic expression of this.

Mr. Sanger responded to our inquiries by email.

"While I did use the term 'child pornography,' I was clear in my report to the FBI that what I was reporting were explicit drawings of child sexual abuse--the relevant statute was 18 USC 1466A, I said. I stand by this. I think a lot of people who have dismissed my concerns as being about 'mere drawings' that were 'historic' have not actually clicked on the thumbnails and looked at the pictures--they truly are disturbing, at least to me. I do think that the statute was designed to be applied to this sort of material. But, of course, that is for the FBI and the courts to decide....

"A lot of people have dismissed my motives as insincere and self-interested. As I explain in the first of the above links, I do not think that this controversy has much chance of helping Citizendium or WatchKnow, or me. It has, as I expected, made me unpopular with a lot of Internet geeks. That can't be helped, I guess."

He refered us to his response on Slashdot regarding his motivations for calling the FBI.

"I have no interest in trying to get Wikimedia shut down; that would be unnecessary, and I doubt it would happen as a result of the violation of the statute. But I think and hope it may cause pressure on Wikimedia from law enforcement, politicians, and the general public to eliminate this sort of content. I also hope that Wikimedia will be persuaded, or if necessary forced, to label its "adult" content as such in a consistent and reliable way, so that it can be easily filtered by school system filters."

Wikipedia and other Wikimedia properties like Wikiquote or Wikibooks could easily find enough advertisers to finance these sites. In order to remain as independent and impartial as possible, however, the Wikimedia Foundation prefers to rely on donations from users.

It is worth noting, though, that the Wikipedia does have deals with some other companies like France Telecom's Orange. These businesses license the site's content and share advertising revenue with the Wikimedia Foundation.

The Wikimedia Foundation has fewer than 35 employees and needs roughly $10 million per year to operate. About 340 million users access Wikipedia per month. According to Wales, this represents "almost a third of the Internet-connected world."

The good news however, is that communities offer the best bang for your buck in this miserable economy and Wales sees return on investment (ROI) as an "incredible steal right now," when it comes to consumer generated media.

Wales, who led the user generated content movement three years before the term Web 2.0 was coined, today told a standing room only audience that people fail to get their corporations off the ground because they don't focus on community. And in a recession, your community could be your saving grace.

"Wikipedia was really born in the depths of the dot com crash," Wales said. "With no investment money available, we had to figure out our own solutions as a community." "If there had been [funds], when problems arose I would likely have hired people to try and solve them," he explained. And according to Wales, this led to innovations in social rules and social institutions.

Wikipedia, the largest encyclopedia in the world with over 2 billion+ words, is the fourth most popular Web site in the world, with 301 million unique visitors monthly according to comScore. Its success is largely due to its passionate community and the content it produces.

Wales pointed to the Marvel community as another great example of a growing consumer generated content phenomenon, with the Marvel Database Project consisting of 49,864 articles and 50,427 images (as of today). Much like Wikipedia, this community of volunteers is passionate and focused on building very high quality content.

Contrary to Popular Belief, Consumer Media is a Great Place for Brand Advertising

Although most brands have been afraid to get involved with user generated content in the past, Wales sees this as a thing of the past because sites like Wikia, Flickr, YouTube etc. are becoming more dominant.

"The modern Web 2.0 space is not about funny cat videos any more or about angry ranting blogs," Wales explained. "If you look at what is happening, you'll see quality content - equal to magazines and television."

But with the plethora of advice being dispensed on the Web it is no wonder brand marketers are confused. "'You need to interact, to blog, to Twitter' is the general advice given today," said Wales. "And for some brands this is absolutely the right thing to do."

The caveat of course, is having a brand that is information dense.

Using Doritos as an example of a brand that won't make it in the consumer generated world (due to the nature of its brand), Wales explained "I don't believe there is ever going to be 50,000 [user generated] articles [written about Doritos]."

Another brand Wales points to is Skittles and its recent campaign, and explains that while it's a good gimmick, it's certainly not the future of Skittles marketing. "Interacting with customers [for brands which are not information dense] is not helpful," Wales explained. "But, if you have a brand that's being talked about online, you need to understand that although you cannot control what is being said, you do need to be there."