Wikia, a for-profit corporation created by Wikipedia Founder, Jimmy Wales, along with financial backing from online retailer - Amazon, is planning to launch a search engine that will leverage the user-driven model deployed by Wikipedia.

Reportedly, the search engine will be called "Wikiasari" deriving its name from 'Wiki' which is Hawaiian for 'quick' plus 'asari' which is Japanese for 'rummaging search'. Wales intends "Wikiasari" to compete with the likes of Google and Yahoo!. Apparently, the revenue model of the proposed search engine will also be advertising, just like Google and Yahoo!

With Google commanding nearly 50 percent of search traffic, and Yahoo! around 25 percent, Wales is hoping that the reputation of Wikipedia and the transparency of the user-driven approach will do the trick for "Wikiasari".

Besides, "Wikiasari" will add human editorial input rather than simply render search results based on popularity and other such algorithms.

According to Wales, "Wikiasari" will be designed to apply the 'wisdom of the crowd' to judging a Web page's value.

However, considering the Web is such a humungous entity, it would be rather difficult to come up with a comprehensive, editorially driven search engine, without infusing inputs by 'trusted users' in the form of 'clickstream/attention data'.

The Wikipedia community is said to be facing problems concerning command and control, and its not clear whether "Wikiasari" will also end up facing similar such problems.

However, the commercial version of "Wikiasari" is set to be developed through California-based Wikia Corp. A provisional launch is planned for Q1 2007.