October 20, 2008 11:30 AM PDT

Layoffs at Jimmy Wales' Wikia?

by Caroline McCarthy
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It's not surprising, considering that everybody else is doing it.

Valleywag reports that Wikia, the for-profit wiki software and search start-up created by Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, has laid off about a third of its 43-person workforce--or 12 to 13 employees.

A Wikia representative was not immediately available to confirm.

The company, formerly known as Wikicities, has big-name investor backing, but it doesn't appear to have pulled in any funding for nearly two years. It raised a Series B round of an undisclosed size from Amazon.com in December 2006; previously, the company had taken a $4 million Series A round and angel funding from Valley luminaries such as Marc Andreessen, Joi Ito, and Ron Conway, as well as venture firms Bessemer Venture Partners and the Omidyar Network.

Since then, Wikia has been working on an ambitious search project and has made acquisitions such as that of search tool Grub.

Caroline McCarthy, a CNET News staff writer, is a downtown Manhattanite happily addicted to social-media tools and restaurant blogs. Her pre-CNET resume includes interning at an IT security firm and brewing cappuccinos. E-mail Caroline.
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by humanssssss October 20, 2008 2:08 PM PDT
They are dead to begin with.
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by thekohser October 21, 2008 8:54 PM PDT
If you leave a comment here that is the least bit critical of Wikia or of Jimmy Wales, it will (apparently) be subject to removal.
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About The Social

CNET News' Caroline McCarthy is a downtown Manhattanite who believes that, despite popular opinion, the Web can actually help your social life. She's happily addicted to fun social-media tools from Twitter to Yelp to Facebook, sends an inordinate number of text messages, and has a tendency to waste time at the office reading restaurant blogs. Here, she explores all facets of the Web's gregarious side, as well as the unique tech culture in her home city of New York. (Don't call it Silicon Alley.)

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