Wikia Inc to launch new search engine

GEAR UP FOR ALTERNATIVE SEARCH: Wales says, “We do look at India as a very exciting IT market.”

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New York: Tech magazine Fast Company recently described him as 'Google's Worst Nightmare'. He's made Wikipedia the leading online encyclopedia. And now its founder Jimbo Wales plans to launch a search engine that will not be proprietary like Google's or Yahoo's, but will be open-source.

And as with Wikipedia, it will be available in various languages including many Indian ones.

“A lot of smaller languages may serve for larger languages that don’t have economic strength. The current offerings are often very weak,” says Wales.

That tool will be at search.wikia.com and an initial version is expected to go live by the end of this year. Wikia is Wales' for-profit creation, an online library.

As the business expands, Wales expects to hire community managers in India as well as source operations from there.

“We do look at India as a very exciting IT market. I think the emergence of the IT industry is probably when you look back 20 years from now, it's going to be one of the major business stories because as big as it is now, it's really just going in that direction,” says Wales.

Wales is familiar with India, and has travelled to the country three times in the past year, visiting Chennai, New Delhi and the ghats (banks) of Varanasi among other stops.

And as Wikia and its search project evolve, Wales expects its Indian component will evolve as well.