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Wikia Search was a short-lived free and open-source Web search engine launched by Wikia, a for-profit wiki-hosting company founded in late 2004 by Jimmy Wales and Angela Beesley. Wikia Search followed other experiments by Wikia into search engine technology and officially launched as a "public alpha" on January 7, 2008.〔(The "public alpha" of Wikia search project )〕 The roll-out version of the search interface was widely criticized by reviewers in mainstream media.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Wikipedia founder's search engine gets bad reviews )〕 After failing to attract an audience, the site closed by 2009. ==History== On December 23, 2006, Wales made a passing comment regarding the possibility of a wiki-based internet search. The result was extensive media coverage in multiple languages, in outlets like ''The Guardian'', the ''Sydney Morning Herald'', and online editions of ''Forbes'' and ''Business Week'' publishing the statement as an announcement, encouraging the company to re-brand and relaunch its previous search engine proposal under the temporary name of "Search Wikia".〔(About search )〕 In a later interview, Wales attempted to clarify several issues. He said that funding received from Amazon.com was not specific to the search project and also restated that Wikia and Wikipedia have separate management, even though they shared three key stakeholders. When asked whether the project was "formally announced", he said it was partly planned and partly a response to news coverage. On January 31, 2007, at a talk given at New York University, Wales announced that Wikia plans to build a search engine rivaling those of Google and Yahoo based on the kind of collaborative cooperation which has been so successful in developing Wikipedia, arguing that "search should be open, transparent, participatory, and democratic."〔(Wales: Search Wikia Will Succeed Where Google Cannot ), InformationWeek, February 5, 2007. Retrieved July 27, 2007.〕 He later suggested this new approach could account for five percent of the search market.〔(Wikipedia founder says to challenge Google, Yahoo ), Reuters, March 8, 2007. Retrieved March 9, 2007.〕 On March 10, 2007, Gil Penchina, chief executive officer of Wikia, stated in an interview that the goal for the project is to get five percent of the search market and that a release date for services was not scheduled. "We're really trying to build a movement to make search free and open and transparent," Penchina said. "We have some servers up and people are hacking away." The free and open-source approach of utilizing programmers and users around the world is different from that used by major search providers such as Google and Yahoo, who keep most of their code secret, and could provide a search engine that lets users edit and fine tune its results.〔Jonathan Thaw, (Wikia plans editable Web search engine ), ''Bloomberg News'', March 10, 2007〕 On December 24, 2007, Wales announced that Wikia Search had entered "private pre-alpha". In August 2008 Wikia Search launched an official version of the Wikia toolbar that can be downloaded and added on to the Firefox browser. In October 2008, WISE – Wikia Intelligent Search Extensions〔(Search.wikia.com )〕 was released. In March 2009, the project ended: "... Wikia Search was not making its numbers. With only 10,000 unique users a month over the past six months, Wales said, it was hard to justify the resources being put into it."〔(Wales giving up on Wikia Search )〕 On June 3, 2008, an upgraded version of Wikia Search was released with additional features such as improved screen display and facilities for users to rate, edit and enhance the search results. In particular, it offered users the possibility of adding pertinent URLs to the results displayed and deleting any misleading results with immediate effect.〔(Wikia Search opens its doors, Heise Online ), June 6, 2008.〕 The improvements were widely welcomed by a number of former critics.〔(Second Wikia Search version gets backing from former critics, Computer World, June 4, 2008 )〕 By August 2008, Wikia Search held a 0.000079% share of the search market in the U.S., compared with Google's 70.77%.〔(Wikia Search, Cuil trailing Google by a long shot ), Network World, August 19, 2008 〕 While Google was conducting experiments with page ranking based on user feedback around this time, Jimmy Wales stated that Google's random tests and its closed algorithm were different from the open, community-oriented crowdsourcing attempts of Wikia Search. The site was said to be going down after March 31, 2009;〔("Update on Wikia", Jimmy Wales )〕 however, as of April 16, 2009, the site was running, but with "So long and thanks for all the fish! Have a specific question? Try wikianswers!" near the bottom of the page. Finally on May 14, 2009, the search engine service was brought to a halt. Queries to the Wikia Search website were redirected, with a message in part stating "The Wikia Search project has ended." 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Wikia Search」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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