Google Challenger Wikia Acquires Grub Web Crawler

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales announced Friday that Wikia, the open-source Internet search service he is setting up to rival Google and Yahoo, has acquired the Web crawler Grub from LookSmart Ltd. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. "If we can get good quality search results, I think it will really change the balance of power from the search companies back to the publishers." Wales said. "I could be wrong about this, but it seems like a likely outcome." He is planning to launch the search engine at the end of 2007. The Wikia search service will use algorithms and human editors to deliver its results, which will be generated through Lucerne, another open-source software product. Unlike previous challengers to search giants Google and Yahoo, Wikia is already affiliated with a site with a massive audience: Wikipedia is the ninth-most visited website in the U.S. and had 47 million unique visitors in June.

Sources: Reuters, 24/7 Wall Street, TechWhack.com
Commentary: Google Tanks on Unexpected Margin Drop • 10 Stock Picks For a Kid Investor • Google Still a Buy, Despite 'Disappointing' Earnings
Stocks/ETFs to watch: GOOG, LOOK. Competitors: YHOO, MSFT. ETFs: FPX, FDN
Earnings call transcripts: Google Q2 2007, Yahoo! Q2 2007
Related: Grub's Distributed Web Crawling Project

Seeking Alpha's news briefs are combined into a pre-market summary called Wall Street Breakfast. Get Wall Street Breakfast by email -- it's free and takes only seconds to sign up.