• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, September 26, 2011

Wikipedia and Wikia founder Jimmy Wales knows something about the creation of user-generated content. Discussing his work as head of free Web hosting service Wikia, Wales emphasizes that giving users control to create authentic content is a key to having a successful online community. He differentiates Wikia from companies SEO-driven companies like Demand Media where people are just writing what they're told based on popular keywords instead of topics they're really passionate about.

Wikia also encourages users to promote their content through other social media and generate critical feedback and brand conversations. Among the stats he rattled off, the site generates 80,000 hours spent a day, 45M million users, 720 new wikis created per day and 73,000 videos uploaded. But it's not a video site! Wales notes that the depth and specificity of the different wikis allows the company to target users in a highly precise way on behalf of advertisers, from geeks to moms, or combinations thereof.