Wikiwand

Not to be confused with Wikipedia.

Wikiwand, formerly stylized as WikiWand,^[2] is a commercial proprietary interface developed for viewing Wikipedia articles.^[3] Its interface includes a sidebar menu displaying the table of contents, a navigation bar, personalized links to other languages, new typography, access to previews of linked articles, display advertisements, and sponsored articles.^[4] The interface is available on Chrome, Safari, Firefox and Microsoft Edge as well as via Wikiwand's website.

Wikiwand

Logo used since 2014
Screenshot depicting Wikipedia's page in Wikiwand
Type of business	Private
Available in	English[note 1]
Headquarters	San Francisco, California[citation needed]
Area served	Worldwide
Founder(s)	Lior Grossman, Ilan Lewin
Chairman	Saar Wilf
CEO	Tomer Lener (2015 — present) Lior Grossman (2013 — 2015)
Key people	Itay Cohen (COO)
Employees	10+
URL	www.wikiwand.com
Commercial	Yes
Registration	None
Launched	2013[1]
Current status	Active

History

Wikiwand was founded in 2013^[1] by Lior Grossman and Ilan Lewin.^[5] It officially launched in August 2014.^[6]

In 2014, Wikiwand was able to raise $600,000 to support the development of the interface. According to Grossman, "It didn't make sense to us that the fifth most popular website in the world, used by half a billion people, has an interface that hasn't been updated in over a decade. We found the Wikipedia interface cluttered, hard to read, hard to navigate, and lacking in terms of usability."^[2]

In March 2015, Wikiwand released an iOS app for iPhone and iPad.^[7]

In February 2020, an Android app was under development.^[8]

In 2021, it was noted that visiting a Wikiwand page made the visitor's device exchange hundreds of requests and several megabytes of data with advertisers.^[9]

On January 12, 2023, Wikiwand 2.0 was officially launched with an overhauled interface and new features like text-to-speech and AI-generated summaries collaborated with Wordtune Read.^[10] On March 1, a Q&A feature powered by GPT-3 was added to the top of all articles.^[11]

Business model

Unlike Wikipedia, Wikiwand is not ad-free. A large number of tracking cookies are set. When it started, Wikiwand announced that it would donate 30 percent of its profits to Wikipedia. As of 2024, this applies only for user donations.^[12] Per the site's Donation page, donations to Wikiwand are made to the Israeli company WIKIPELE LTD.^[13]

Notes

1. Articles from Wikipedia in 354 languages are available.

References

1. "Wikiwand - Press". Retrieved 27 December 2022.
2. "Web App WikiWand Raises $600,000 to Give Wikipedia a New Interface". TechCrunch. 7 August 2014. Retrieved 3 November 2017.
3. Jillian Wong (21 August 2014). "'WikiWand' Gives Wikipedia Clean New Layout For A Better Reading Experience". Taxi. Archived from the original on 26 August 2014. Retrieved 22 August 2014.
4. Martin Brinkmann (14 August 2014). "WikiWand is a modernized Wikipedia frontend". ghacks.net. Retrieved 22 August 2014.
5. "Wikiwand - About us". Retrieved 27 December 2022.
6. Grossman, Lior. "WikiWand is a slick new interface for Wikipedia". Product Hunt: Launches. Retrieved 2023-07-01.
7. Zach Epstein (18 March 2015). "New free iPhone app transforms Wikipedia into a stunning interactive experience". Yahoo. Archived from the original on 15 September 2017. Retrieved 26 March 2015.
8. "Wikiwand for Android". Wikiwand. Archived from the original on 23 January 2021. Retrieved 11 February 2020.
9. "Wikiwand, oder wie sehen 600K Venturekapital nach acht Jahren aus?" (in German). 2021-04-08.
10. "Wikiwand 2.0 is officially here!". Wikiwand. 12 January 2023. Retrieved 22 March 2023.
11. "#Wikipedia + #gpt3 = 💞📜!". Wikiwand. 1 March 2023. Retrieved 22 March 2023.
12. "About Wikiwand". Wikiwand. Retrieved 5 June 2024.
13. "Wikipele Ltd., Ra'ananna, Israel". www.northdata.com. Retrieved 5 June 2024.

External links

• Official website