Fandom (formerly known as Wikicities and Wikia) is a media conglomerate backed by TPG, a private equity firm. The website offers a platform for hosting wiki pages with social media features on various topics such as video games, movies, books, and TV series.[2] The company also owns several entertainment outlets such as GameSpot and TV Guide, multimedia databases such as GameFAQs, Metacritic and ComicVine, as well as online retailers such as Fanatical.
The privately held for-profit Delaware company was founded in October 2004 by Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales and Angela Beesley Starling.[3] Fandom was acquired in 2018 by TPG Inc. and Jon Miller through Integrated Media Co.[4]
Fandom uses MediaWiki, the same open-source wiki software used by Wikipedia. Unlike the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit organization that hosts Wikipedia, Fandom, Inc. operates as a for-profit company and derives its income from advertising and sold content, publishing most user-provided text under copyleft licenses.[5] The company also runs the associated Fandom editorial project, offering pop-culture and gaming news.[6] Fandom wikis are hosted under the domain fandom.com, which has become one of the top 50 most visited websites in the world, rapidly rising in popularity beginning in the early 2020s. It ranks as the 50th as of October 2023, with 25.79% of its traffic coming from the United States, followed by Russia with 7.76%, according to Similarweb.[7]
History
<span id="2004–09: Early days and growth"> 2004–2009: Early days and growth
Fandom was launched on October 18, 2004, at 23:50:49 (UTC) under the name Wikicities (which invited comparisons to Yahoo's GeoCities),[8] by Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia, and Angela Beesley Starling—respectively chairman emeritus and advisory board member of the Wikimedia Foundation. Wales' original idea was to use his Wikipedia idea for a place where people from the same city or other geographical place could come together.[9]
The project's name was changed to Wikia on March 27, 2006.[10]
Services and features
Present
Wikis
The main purpose of articles in a Fandom community is to cover information and discussion on a particular topic in a much greater and more comprehensive detail level than what can be found in Wikipedia articles.[69]
Other examples of content that is generally considered beyond the scope of Wikipedia articles include Fandom information about video games and related video game topics, detailed instructions, gameplay details, plot details, and so forth. Gameplay concepts can also have their own articles. Fandom also allows wikis to have a point of view, rather than the neutral POV that is required by Wikipedia (although NPOV is a local policy on many Fandom communities).[70][71]
The image policies of Fandom communities tend to be more lenient than those of
Controversies
Relationship with Wikipedia
In the 2000s, Fandom, then called Wikia, was accused of unduly profiting from a perceived association with Wikipedia.[114][115] Although Fandom has been referred to in the media as "the commercial counterpart to the non-profit Wikipedia",[116][117] Wikimedia[118] and Fandom staff[119] call this description inaccurate.
Fandom, Inc.
The overall parent company, Fandom, Inc., is headquartered at the Hallidie Building on 130 Sutter Street[184] in San Francisco, California.[185] The company was incorporated in Florida in December 2004 and re-incorporated in Delaware as Wikia, Inc. on January 10, 2006.[186]
Fandom has technical staff in the US, but also has an office in Poznań, Poland, where the primary engineering functions are performed.[13]
Fandom derives income from advertising. The company initially used Google AdSense[187] but moved on to
See also
- Comparison of wiki hosting services
Attribution
Citations
External links
References
- What Is Fandom Fandom, retrieved December 11, 2023^
- Dawn Chmielewski. Wikia Launches Fandom, a New Place to Get Your Nerd On Vox, 2016-01-25, retrieved 2022-03-12^
- Tom McNichol. Building a Wiki World Business 2.0, May 1, 2007, retrieved October 31, 2007