"Daniel F. Gass, who signs his emails “15 year old conquering the web” already conquered a part of it since last night, creating a Wikia search plugin for Firefox! ..." -- http://mycroft.mozdev.org/download.html?name=http%3A%2F%2Fsearch.wikia.c...

Jimmy Wales at FSFS.in Jimmy Wales had talked about few of his new initiatives at FSFS.in conference in Kerala, India.

Wikia Search Project Search Wikia is one of them. Unlike other search engines the methods of search indexing (algorithms) are open for all to see and understand. Would it change how the search engines work in future is yet to be seen

"Search Wikia *will* launch before 2008!!" via http://searchwikia.wordpress.com/2007/12/23/search-wikia-will-launch-bef...

« While I personally believe in the opportunity for free software to make serious inroads into the search space, our project, Wikia Search, has not been enjoying the kind of success that we had hoped »

"Yesterday brought the alpha release of Wikia Search, a new engine built on free software and free culture values. For Wikia co-founder Jimmy Wales, the release is a milestone in the realization of a long-held dream. However, as he tells Linux.com, Wikia Search is still a couple of years from maturity, with many of the details still to work out. «Philosophically, I'm a big supporter of free software,» says Wales..."

Wikia Search launched live Monday in its first publicly accessible form.

The search engine, backed by Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, is an open source search tool that allows collaboration.

Wikipedia and Wikia operate independently and are unrelated except for Wales' involvement in each.

Wales announced plans for the project last year and said he wanted to provide an open alternative to Google (NSDQ: GOOG).

Wikia Search uses a social networking model, allowing users to create profiles, select friends, share photos, and manage privacy preferences in addition to providing traditional search capabilities. Users can click on an option to start or participate in discussions about search rankings and write mini-articles about search terms.

This is the Community Portal of Search Wikia, which is the wiki to implement an editable open content free search engine.

Yes, you can help. Either as a developer or a wiki editor. Please see below.

You can ask questions at the forum or talk to one of the site admins if you need specific help.

"After midnight on the West Coast, Wikia made its alpha search available. Our heightened interest stems from the early pronouncements by Jimmy Wales, who co-founded Wikipedia. This time, his plan is to apply collaborative tools to build a better search engine than Google..."

Mention Jimmy Wales and you automatically think Wikipedia; however, that is not his only love child. The Wikia search engine is his latest offspring; or least it was when it was launched in January 2008. Wikia has been devised as a free software and open source alternative to Google and othersNow.