JERUSALEM (Reuters) - The founder of online encyclopedia Wikipedia
said on Wednesday he had entered into a partnership with computer
company Hewlett Packard that will allow users to create and print
magazines.
Jimmy Wales, founder of the user-edited Wikipedia, said users will be
able to publish personal magazines using content from Wikia sites.
Traditional magazine readership is in decline, with some closing, and
the new initiative is aimed at the wealth of information on the
Internet that can be personalized.
"We are doing all kinds of things like that to think about ways to
sustain this idea of participatory culture," Wales told Reuters on the
sidelines of the Israeli Presidential Conference.
Using HP's MagCloud, users will be able to print on-demand magazines
from Wikia's more than 50,000 communities and 3 million pages of
content.
To publish a glossy, full-color magazine for friends, the coffee table
or mass distribution, Wikia users select the content and cover page,
and then order their request through MagCloud, HP said in a statement.
"We have no idea if this will be popular," Wales said.
Wikia just posted its first profitable quarter, driven by strong
advertising revenues generated largely from its gaming sites, Wales
said.
While Wikia is for profit, Wikipedia is supported by the non-profit
Wikimedia Foundation.
http://www.reuters.com/article/internetNews/idUSTRE59K4MX20091021
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