Wikia Continues To Roll Out New Communities

Three new online collaborative communities -- for entertainment, politics, and local interchange -- were unveiled Tuesday by Wikia, which continues to roll out a network of Web-based communities offering free content.

Wikia began offering the communities last year after it acquired the online sports community ArmchairGM. All the communities have a similar look and feel. They let users blog, rate content, and contribute postings and news on topics of interest.

The new Entertainment Community is focused on TV and movies, offering users an online place to review movies, shows, and actors, as well to blog away on Hollywood-oriented subjects.

Your Local Community is focused on municipalities across the United States, giving users a chance to search for their home communities by ZIP code and then to post news on local events. Issues facing communities can easily be discussed by participants.

The Politics Community is divided into national, state, and local sections where participants can contribute to discussions by state or ZIP code."Adding entertainment, local [news] and politics to the mix is just the first in a series of steps we will take to better enable people to come together online around common interests," said ArmchairGM's Dan Lewis in a statement. "Clearly, sports are a topic that a lot of people care about, but there are thousands of others." Lewis is co-founder of ArmchairGM and VP of business development at Wikia.

Earlier communities started by Wikia include Music Wikia, Marvel Comics Wikia, and World Wikia, an online travel guide. The firm said it has registered 65,000 users in 45 languages for the various communities.