Wikia Continues Significant Growth Trajectory: Named Top 10 Social Network by Nielsen

SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 19, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Wikia.com, a collaborative publishing platform that enables people around the world to discover, create and share content on pop culture topics, today announced its traffic results from comScore's November 2012 Media Metrix, showing a 33% year-over-year traffic increase to over 70 million global unique visitors and for the first time in company history surpassed 1 billion page views per month. This places Wikia in the comScore top 100 for both US and Global measurements. On top of Wikia's tremendous organic growth, the company was recently named one of the top 10 social networks according to Nielsen's Social Media Report 2012.

Wikia, included in Nielsen's list of top 10 social networks, boasts over 250,000 communities with more than 600 new ones added every day.  Mobile usage has proved to be a key component of social as each of the top networks, along with Wikia, has seen significant mobile usage over past year. In the U.S. alone, Wikia's mobile growth accounts for almost 32% of the site's U.S. traffic with over 47M page views per month.

"More so than ever, our knowledgeable and passionate users are emerging as leading voices. While many traditional social network sites maintain a strong short-term experience, people come to Wikia to live," said Craig Palmer, CEO of Wikia.  "It is a testament to our users that Wikia is experiencing this kind of growth.  We are excited to continue to innovate and provide new ways for people to collaborate and commune around topics they know and love. In this way, Wikia is a reflection of popular culture." 

To celebrate the site's recent success, Wikia has released 2012's top 5 trends bubbling up within the Wikia universe and expected to hit the mainstream in 2013:

1. Super Vamps - The final Twilight didn't premiere in movie theaters until November, but vampires, werewolves, and zombies dominated Hollywood for the entire year. The supernatural landscape is not limited to the Bella Swan types though. Heroines like Katniss Everdeen (from The Hunger Games), Pris (from Divergent), and Clary Fray (from The Mortal Instruments) thrive in dystopian worlds where they must fend for themselves. They are all strong female characters — characters that our communities eagerly embraced. The Hunger Games community continues to be a top 100 Wikia community more than six months after the movie's release, with more than 2M page views and 50K contributions a month.  With two more Hunger Games movies on the way, we expect these characters to remain popular, driving even more discussion on Wikia.

2. What's Old Is New Again - You may think you know these fairytale stories, but they've been transformed for the twenty-first century. "Grimm", "Once Upon a Time", and "Sherlock" on television — plus Snow White and the Huntsman at the movies — were all remade, re-launched, or rebooted in 2012. Super heroes, like the fictional detectives, were also given new life this year in blockbuster movies, and the consistent and periodic revamping of the characters from the DC Comics and Marvel stable is unlikely to halt anytime soon. The Marvel community has been a permanent fixture in the top 20 communities on Wikia for 220 days in a row.  After Disney and Marvel's wildly successful The Avengers won the summer box office, movie studios are likely to follow suit with similar projects, grouping together powerful brands to create super teams (and subsequent solo projects).

3. Crowd-Gaming - It's no secret that the video game sector of the entertainment industry is the fastest growing and the most lucrative. This is in part because of its ever-evolving nature. In 2012 we saw a dramatic rise in crowd-funded gaming, but these young and newly-funded developers have yet to prove themselves. They'll get their chance in the coming year, though. We've already seen this on Wikia with the indie game, FTL, whose community essentially exploded over night, shooting up the ranks from #5000 in early Sept to #99 on Oct 1. Small (and Kickstarter-funded) games like Project Eternity and Strike Suit Zero garnered a massive early audience, and we can expect the phenomenon to foster strong and active corresponding wikis.

4. The Spoils of War - You must know at least one person who has spent innumerable hours playing League of Legends. He or she is not alone. League of Legends has been one of the top two Wikia gaming communities in the second half of 2012, regularly posting 15M page views and 100K contributions each month.  LoL and other games like Dota 2, Guardians of Middle-Earth, Shootmania, Smite, and CS:GO have an ardent fan base that has increased the attention competitive gaming has received. The fans have united throughout the respective Wikia communities, making each the definitive destination for strategy and news. These games are a powerful force in culture, unlikely to abate any time soon.

5. Treat the Women in Your Life Well - Among the millions of users on Wikia, there is one emerging community that will rival all others in the coming year. We call them the "influence-her": the highly-informed information junky who will make an impression on all her social circles — online and off.  This is the woman you want on your side. She will evangelize her friends, turning them into supporters of her favorite TV show, game or movie. She wants to know about the next big thing early so she can help build wide excitement. In 2013, Wikia is expanding its Lifestyle community efforts so these powerful women have more information and the platform to gain and interact with fellow supporters.

Wikia's 250,000+ communities have aggregated over 100,000 videos, 14M photos, and 5,000 hours of premium content that attract audiences across all ages, genders, geographies and interests, including gaming, entertainment and lifestyle communities such as DIY fashion, beauty, education and science. In October, Wikia Games traffic exceeded 27M unique visitors, making Wikia Games one of the top video game destinations on the Web and a leader in the industry.  Wikia Entertainment is experiencing stellar momentum with over 62% growth year-over-year while attracting over 30M unique global visitors. 

About Wikia:
Wikia is the definitive place for people to collaboratively pursue their interests and share their knowledge on the web. Using Wikia, anyone can form new communities around any subject they love or participate in over 200,000 existing communities by reading or contributing new content. With over five million pages of rich content, Wikia's communities are the most authoritative information about any topic on the Internet.  Launched as Wikia in 2006 by founders Jimmy Wales and Angela Beesley, Wikia attracts more than 47 million global unique visitors per month and is ranked a Top 50 Internet site according to Quantcast.

SOURCE Wikia

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