Wikia Search Dead
Wikia Search dead, says CNET:
Wikia is announcing on Tuesday that it is closing the Wikia Search product. The service was intended to be a user-generated search engine, through which users could influence the rankings of results for all other users.
The Wikia Search project is set to be shut down Tuesday.
Corroborated by a post to the moribund search-l mailing list:
From: "Mark (Markie)"
Subject: [Search-l] The end is here...
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10207896-2.html tells it all.
it was nice working with you all, thoughts go to all the staff who have been let go because of this. who knows, we may meet again the in the future at some point.
regards
mark
ps: http://search.isc.org/ -> go there :)
I had seen indications of this last month, but I'm not exactly their favorite person, so they likely weren't going to talk to me.
Post-mortem later.
[Techmeme readers: You may enjoy my earlier column on Wikia Search
"When you have a Wikipedia, everything looks like an edit"
]
Update 2:
They-said-it-not-me: I like the way VentureBeat describes the PR
By Seth Finkelstein | posted in wikia-search | on March 31, 2009 11:04 AM (Infothought permalink)In confirming the news, Wales attempts to deflect the bad news by pointing to the success Wikia.com, Wikia Search’s parent, has seen in terms of growth over the past two years. But towards the end of his post, he concedes that Wikia Search has not had the success that the company had hoped for.
Well, well, well. This means that lowly MyWikiBiz.com, which Jimmy Wales called "antithetical" to Wikipedia has outlasted not one (OpenServing.com), but TWO (OpenServing.com and SearchWikia) of Jimbo's for-profit ventures!
To be fair, that's a dubious achievement 1/2 :-).
It's clear he's trying many projects in hoping that one works (and buys him a jet).
My issue is that way in which risk and work are transfered to people who will never share in the return.