Wikia’s ArmchairGM: Wiki Meets Social Network

Wikia, a for profit wiki site created by Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, acquired ArmchairGM for $2 million last year and got into the sports fan business.

The site has been slowly rolling out new features. Wikia CEO Gil Penchina described it to me as “Wiki 2.0″ - because it combines the best features of open source wiki software with social networking features like adding friends, building a profile, meeting new people, create groups, etc. ArmchairGM also allows users to add “foes” in addition to friends, since a lot of sports rivalries are generated on the site.

The site also has a unique user generated virtual gift product. Unlike other social networks, users create the gifts themselves by uploading images. Other users can then use those gifts, too, and some become quite popular.

Wikis and social networks don’t exactly mix well. Parts of the network, like user profiles, need to be locked down so that only the owner can edit them. Other parts of the site remain wide open and allow anyone to edit.

And its growing, fairly rapidly. ArmchairGM alone is now at 1 million monthly page views. Wikia has also rolled out the ArmchairGM software for ten other verticals not included in that page view count - see, for example, Foodie, Gaming, and Politics. The company recently brought in the NFL as a site-wide sponsor.

Parent company Wikia continues to grow rapidly, says Penchina. They had 250 million page views in August.

NBC Runs From iTunes Into The Arms Of Amazon

Last week a lot of drama developed between Apple and NBC over who broke up with who. All we really know is that the pair allegedly split over conflicts around DRM and pricing control. It was quite a hit for Apple, with NBC making up 40% or iTune’s digital video downloads.

Today NBC found a friend in Amazon, announcing a deal to sell the network’s digital TV content. Amazon already sells NBC Universal’s movies. NBC shows available on Amazon Unbox will include The Office, Heroes, and 30 Rock. They will also be selling content from their subsidiaries: USA Network, SCI FI Channel, Bravo, Telemundo, mun2, NBC Sports, and NBC News.

Beginning on September 10, Amazon Unbox customers will download for free — in advance of their network premieres — the pilot episodes of NBC’s new shows Bionic Woman, Chuck, Journeyman and Life. New episodes will be available for purchase on Amazon Unbox the day after they air on TV. Complete seasons may be purchased as soon as the season concludes.

The deal is yet another twist in NBC’s ongoing plans to monetize their content online. NBC has already announced plans to release the same content on their new site Hulu, with no word on how the new deal will affect the offering. (Bit Torrent, however, is still up and running)

Googlers Get Kinky On Wikipedia

Warning: presume all links in this post are NSFW.

Users of Google registered IP addresses contributed to Wikipedia entries including “Amateur Pornography“, the “List of male performers in gay porn films” and “Mutual Masturbation” according to data pulled from Wikiscanner. Other sexually related edits include the pages for sex show and the talk:#$%^ sex; a particular person is using a computer with a Google IP address to share the details of his sex life with the world.

Another user decided to clean up one Wikipedia entry by correcting the definition to read “”Motherf&$@er means to f&$@ your mother also known as incest,” which of course made the entry that much more clearer.

User’s of IP addresses registered to Google’s Corporate IT Department edited a page pertaining to something called “Breast expansion fetishism” and these two which I won’t name lest I haven’t upset enough people with the language in the post already.

Overall though, people using Google IP addresses are a fairly tame bunch, with no evidence that they have been editing the pages of Google competitors, the story I had initially looked to research. However, there were two edits by people using Google IP addresses to pages relating to Google; the first removes the term Googly from the Google (Verb) Entry, the second bizarrely deletes mention of Google having an office in Ireland.

Real Time Coverage Of Apple Announcements

Hop on over to CrunchGear to see the real time coverage of the special Apple press event today that started at 10 am PST. Lots of new iPod news, and a make-your-own ringtone tool in iTunes. And they always save the best stuff for last.

Eye Candy + Google = Groovle

Ontario based Groovle has a such a simple business model, it’s worthy of asking “why didn’t I think of that?” Groove uses Google Custom search in conjunction with picture hosting to offer custom Google search pages.

Users have two options in terms of how a Groovle page looks; they can either select from a list of preexisting pages or upload their own picture. Groovle offers an extensive variety of ready to use pages in categories including celebrities, nature, space, and sport.

Groovle makes its money from the search results generated by Google Custom Search, and given that those results are delivered by Google the business runs on a low cost, low barrier to succeed model. Sports fans, celebrity lovers, and anyone looking for a basic search oriented (ie one without widgets) custom start page who don’t want to create one themselves will like Groovle.

groovle.jpg

Justice Department Says ISPs Are Like The Post Office

The U.S. Justice Department has taken a step toward you getting more charges from your ISP. In comments to the FCC today, the Department said imposing Net neutrality regulations could “could deter broadband Internet providers from upgrading and expanding their networks to reach more Americans.”

Chief amongst their examples was that the one of the oldest data delivery systems, the U.S. Postal Service, charges customers differently based on guarantees and speeds of delivery, ranging from bulk mail to overnight. Similarly, the Department believes ISPs who deliver data packages, should be able to offer different levels of service to spread the costs of improving networks.

Net Neutrality proponents counter with a different analogy, pointing out telephone networks have always been neutral to the data transmitted across their wires.

This is good news for telecoms, like by AT&T Inc., Verizon and Comcast, who argue that high-volume uploaders should pay for part of the cost of upgrading internet infrastructure to handle the new load. It’s bad news for the internet companies (Google, eBay, Yahoo ,Microsoft) ISPs have seen get rich off their networks.

However, Telcos caution that they don’t want to charge for access to public sites, but want to offer private Internet-based services with faster speeds for uses such as downloading movies.

Adobe’s Online Image Editor Previewed

Right on schedule, Adobe previews an online version of its ubiquitous Photoshop tool, to be called Photoshop Express.

Adobe isn’t saying much, other than to point out that it is not a Photoshop replacement but rather “a new member of the Photoshop family that’s meant to make Adobe imaging technology immediately accessible way to large numbers of people.”

Either way, a number of startups are not going to be having such a good weekend.