Wikia, the for profit company founded by Jimmy Wales, the former “soft-core” adult content salesman and founder of Wikipedia, has launched three “new communities” based on entertainment, local and politics, in a move desribed by Wikia as being “designed to significantly enhance the ability of passionate people to collaborate online”…in laymens terms the new services are commercial niche topic based versions of Wikipedia, where Wikia can exploit free contributions for profit.

The new sites announced include:

The Entertainment Community which provides “T.V. and movie lovers with a place to create episode guides, movie and actor reviews, or blog about all-things Hollywood”
Your Local Community which features “individual sections for nearly every town in the United States–users can search for their town’s section using their zip code”.
The Politics Community which features “national, state and local sections where users are able to search and contribute by state and/or zip code.”

Everyone loves Wikipedia, but does Wikia really thing that they can use Wikipedia’s model and profit from the efforts of millions of people for free? It’s times like these I just want to channel Jason Calacanis for some thoughts, because he’s been right on the money all along with this sort of thing.

 

Tags: Wikipedia, Wikia

Originally posted on February 13, 2007 @ 7:30 pm

So we covered the cheatsheet for making money blogging earlier today, that might have gotten you a little inspired.

Go for it! Please do! Don’t quit your dayjob, but do throw yourself out there. I personally recommend it.

So what are your going to name your blog and that fictitious company you want to roll out? Despite the fact that most of the good domain names are already taken, even without that obstacle it’s quite a feat coming up with a good name.

There’s a great article up on Vitamin about that. Sure, it focuses on naming your company, but there sure are tidbits there for blogs and/or products as well.

So what makes a good name? There are five main characteristics:
1. It’s easy to remember
2. It’s easy to spell and requires no explanation
3. It describes your business category
4. It describes your benefit
5. It describes your difference

Vitamin is a pretty good name by the way…

Originally posted on February 14, 2007 @ 4:48 pm

You may have heard about Wallstrip, the video blog that I’ve railed against in the past for its lack of originality and its poor management is in the news again. Last week they were in the NY Intelligencier with one of the worst reviews in new media history. I didn’t comment on this article to spare Howard Lindzon the shame.

In the past I’ve questioned the leadership of Howard Lindzon as a new media producer as he often takes cheap shots and does things I’ve learned the hard way just don’t work. Yes, I used to be an uber snarky attack blogger. In fact I once had an ongoing feud with Loren Feldman, a New York City based ‘snobishly snarky video producer’ who is really hilarious.

Recently, in a comment thread Howard called Loren Feldman, “a putz and a small time thief“.

Loren and I are good friends and the comment thread got rather heated as Howard took off on some rabid trail of anger lashing out at good people. Including some of my best friends in the industry. I’m no lawyer but I think he crossed some lines, and possibly his intent was to cause harm towards Loren Feldman, and Podtech.net a company Loren works for.

Here’s another case when competion gets ugly. In school we would say, Howard be a good sport. But this is the real world, and now he faces a tough scathing legal battle that doesn’t look good for Wallstrip, or for Fred Wilson, an investor in the startup video company.

Loren has a video up that shares a bit more details on what’s going on:

Public Disclosure: Howard Lindzon was banned from publishing comments at 901am after starting fights and making immoral comments toward 901am staffers.

Originally posted on February 13, 2007 @ 9:45 am

Advertising Age tells us that celebrity magazines are up, quoting figures from OK, Us Weekly, Star and other mags I’ve never bothered to read. Good for them.

I think it’s interesting that these titles are going up, since most mags are struggling these days. Online is the new place to go read stuff, basically, and that certainly goes for most areas. Teen magazines are having a hard time, that same AdAge story says so, and it’s a known fact as well.

But why do these celebrity mags do so well? Maybe they were very poor last year, what do I know, but I’m guessing not. The celebrity magazine segment should have a hard time as any other since there are dozens of big sites that do more or less the same thing. Gossip, celebrity pictures, that sort of thing is huge online.

Maybe the celebrity market isn’t saturated yet, or maybe these mags do something that the web publications don’t. Any thoughts?

Originally posted on February 13, 2007 @ 1:53 am