In July John Gotts, a domain name investor, agreed to buy the site Wiki.com for $2.86 million. Gotts is reportedly paying $10K a month for six months with the option to pay the lump sum in January if his for-profit wiki scheme looks viable. Even before the domain had any content (which is has for a couple weeks), it was generating 100,000 hits a day. Now, it is a wiki farm in the vein of Wikia, JotSpot and SocialText, powered by a company with Microsoft personnel ties, MindTouch.
From the New York Times article, New Web Sites Seeking Profit in Wiki Model today:
Mr. Gotts, who has been paying for Wiki.com in $10,000 installments with a final payment of about $2.8 million due within six months, said that he intended to share revenue with those who used his site to start wikis. “The main way we’re going to make money,†he said, “is to lead the trend for users to make money.â€
He said that he would let users register Wiki.com subdomains free on topics of their own choosing — he suggested that might be anything from soccer.wiki.com to smokedsalmon.wiki.com — in the hope they would attract advertising or e-commerce.
But Ramit Sethi, co-founder of PBwiki, another make-your-own wiki site, said that it was still too early to determine what model would turn wikis into money-makers.
“Nobody has found the de facto business model for wikis,†said “It’s kind of the Wild West.
Valleywag interviewed Gotts shortly after the beta version Wiki.com site was launched. There’s a comment from a reader at the end of the piece that questions a number of things about the subject.
