
Jimmy Wales, Foundation of
Wikipedia, has taken another bold step in his "free is best" approach to online community business models. His commercial service
Wikia has announced it will now provide free software (Wikimedia and other) and free hosting ("open serving") to web site operators, with 100% of any ad revenue generated by the site going to the site owner. In return Wikia seeks only a link back to its service. Wikia also announced a new round of investment by Amazon (terms not disclosed). The
previous round of investment in March 2006, involving Bessemer Venture Partners, Omidyar Network, and angels, totalled $4 million.