OpenServing

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OpenServing was a short-lived Web publishing project owned by Wikia, founded on December 12, 2006,[1][2] and abandoned in January 2008. OpenServing, like Wikia, was to have offered free wiki hosting, but it would differ from Wikia in that the founder of the particular wiki would retain any revenue gained from the advertising on the site[3] and unlike other hosts, OpenServing would offer this as a free service.[1][4]

According to Wikia founder and chairman Jimmy Wales, the OpenServing site received several thousand applications within the first month, January 2007.[5] However, after a year, not a single site had been launched under the OpenServing banner. The project had not issued any press releases since December 2006. Angela Beesley, a co-founder and vice president of Wikia described OpenServing as "never very popular or successful", and that the Wikia team's efforts had been refocused on wikia.com itself.[6]

OpenServing used a modified version of the Wikimedia Foundation's Mediawiki wiki software created by ArmchairGM, but was going to be branching out to other open source packages.[1][7]

Currently, the Openserving.com domain name redirects to Wikia.com. OpenServing's closure was never formally announced.[6]

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c "Wikipedia founder remakes Web-publishing economics", Reuters/USA Today, 2006-12-12. Retrieved on 2007-10-04. 
  2. ^ Wikia Announces Free Wiki Hosting. TechCrunch (2006-12-11).
  3. ^ "Wikipedia to share collaborative software", Daily Times, 2006-12-18. Retrieved on 2007-10-04. 
  4. ^ Wikia Unveils OpenServing - the Mother of All Freebies. Business Wire (2006-12-11).
  5. ^ "Wikis can succeed on newspaper sites, claims Wikipedia founder", Online Journalism News, Journalism.co.uk, 2007-01-19. Retrieved on 2007-10-04. 
  6. ^ a b Wikia's OpenServing Project Dies a Quiet Death. Mars Magazine (2007-10-10).
  7. ^ Wikipedia founder to share collaborative software. AFP (December 2006).

[edit] External links

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