Wikipedia founder in HP online magazine print deal

JERUSALEM, ISRAEL: The founder of online encyclopedia Wikipedia said on Wednesday he had entered into a partnership with computer company Hewlett Packard that will allow users to create and print magazines.

Jimmy Wales, founder of the user-edited Wikipedia, said users will be able to publish personal magazines using content from Wikia sites.

Traditional magazine readership is in decline, with some closing, and the new initiative is aimed at the wealth of information on the Internet that can be personalized.

"We are doing all kinds of things like that to think about ways to sustain this idea of participatory culture," Wales told Reuters on the sidelines of the Israeli Presidential Conference.

Using HP's MagCloud, users will be able to print on-demand magazines from Wikia's more than 50,000 communities and 3 million pages of content.

To publish a glossy, full-color magazine for friends, the coffee table or mass distribution, Wikia users select the content and cover page, and then order their request through MagCloud, HP said in a statement.

"We have no idea if this will be popular," Wales said.

Wikia just posted its first profitable quarter, driven by strong advertising revenues generated largely from its gaming sites, Wales said.

While Wikia is for profit, Wikipedia is supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation.