Wikipedia Chief: Mahalo 'Just Not That Interesting'

Wikipedia chief Jimmy Wales has been showing off his crisp media-genic chops for that last couple of months in the mainstream media, but he still knows how to wage a good mailing list war on the Internet. Commenting on the recently launched Web directory Mahalo, Wales delivers the following smooth smackdown:

“The difference between Mahalo and Wikia is pretty clear, isn't it? Mahalo is proprietary. Wikia is free. Or at least, I haven't heard Jason [Calacanis] say that he's going to release either the software or data under a free license. And so, for me, his project is just not that interesting. I mean, I am sure it is lovely and all, but I really don't care about it. I do wish he would stop spamming this list with irrelevancies, but of course he is welcome to contribute and welcome to use our work if it suits him.”

I don't know about the spamming charge, but when Mahalo launched all I saw was a commercialized version of Wikipedia with all proprietary pizzazz of About.com, so I'll have to agree with the "not that interesting" quip from Wales. Read the full Wales note here...

Photo: Joi Ito