engine - 6:43 pm on Jan 2, 2008 (gmt 0)

After months of talk and a few weeks of invitation-only testing, Wikia Search is to open to the general public next week. Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales says his goal is to let volunteers improve search technology collectively, the way Wikipedia lets anyone add or change entries, regardless of expertise. "That reduces the sort of bottleneck of two or three firms really controlling the flow of search traffic," said Wales, chairman of Wikia Inc., the for-profit venture behind the search project.

Wikia Search To Open Next Week [ap.google.com]