Blog: Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales announces the release of an open-source Web crawling site called Grub.
Article: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/searc...547-1023_3-0-10
Full Version: Wikia buys Grub
QUOTE(Yahoo! News @ Fri 27th July 2007, 9:09pm) 
Blog: Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales announces the release of an open-source Web crawling site called Grub.
Article: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/searc...547-1023_3-0-10
So, let me pull my finger out of my throat long enough to understand what's just happened here.
Grub.org was an open-source web crawling index in existence since October 2000.
Jimbo announced around Christmas 2006 that he was going to start developing an open-source web-indexing community. It was called "Wikiasari", but then everybody got confused about the name, and Wikia Search, and Amazon money was flying all over the place.
Months passed.
Jimbo's search project didn't seem to be going anywhere, so he simply gave up and just PURCHASED grub.org from LookSmart.
Do I have this right?
Did Jimbo's "project" of the past 8 months just boil down to an "ahh f*ck it, let's just buy some site that's already doing it"??
Speaking of dead-end projects, what's going on with Jimbo's ballyhooed OpenServing.com?
Greg
QUOTE(thekohser @ Fri 27th July 2007, 11:03pm)
I think I've finally figured out this puzzle. Jimbo has Wikia, where nerds can generate content, but Jimbo pockets all of the ad revenue and venture capital investment that these volunteer nerds inspire.
He also has Openserving.com, where nerds can generate content, and the nerds pocket all of the ad revenue they can generate. That is, if the project were even operating.
The first project, Wikia, is apparently thriving and spawning even more capital investment.
The second project, despite in its first month (December 2006 to January 2007) receiving "several thousand requests to use the software", still hasn't opened a single site under its umbrella, and there hasn't been a solitary press release issued about Openserving since December 2006.
Hmmm, I wonder why the project that makes money for Jimbo (Wikia) is going strong, but the one that doesn't make him any money (Openserving) is, by all observation, completely abandoned?
But, wait -- in December 2006, Jimbo assured us about Openserving:
QUOTE
We don't have all the business model answers, but we are confident - as we always have been - that the wisdom of our community will prevail.
Seems to me, that particular brand of community wisdom was summed up best on Slashdot:
QUOTE
by anthony_dipierro (543308) on Tuesday December 12, 2006 @10:09PM (#17217868)
I think Angela Beesley, cofounder of Wikia, said it best: "So far, there are two ways Wikia has made money - advertising and venture capital/angel investment". (1) Now they've decided to get rid of the advertising. The "???" is clearly "get suckers to give you venture capital".
Seriously though, the last time I heard venture capital referred to as "making money" was right before the last dot com bubble burst.
I think Angela Beesley, cofounder of Wikia, said it best: "So far, there are two ways Wikia has made money - advertising and venture capital/angel investment". (1) Now they've decided to get rid of the advertising. The "???" is clearly "get suckers to give you venture capital".
Seriously though, the last time I heard venture capital referred to as "making money" was right before the last dot com bubble burst.
And, thus, we have solved the mystery of Jimbo's project, Openserving.com. Truly, it was a Jimbo brain-fart, now dead in the water.
Greg
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