| Wikiwand | |
| Company Type: | Private |
| Launch Date: | 2013 |
| Location: | San Francisco, California |
| Area Served: | Worldwide |
| Founder: | Lior Grossman, Ilan Lewin |
| Chairman: | Saar Wilf |
| Ceo: | Tomer Lener (2015 — present) Lior Grossman (2013 — 2015) |
| Key People: | Itay Cohen (COO) |
| Num Employees: | 10+ |
| Registration: | None |
| Language: | English[1] |
| Current Status: | Active |
| Commercial: | Yes |
Wikiwand, formerly stylized as WikiWand, is a commercial proprietary interface developed for viewing Wikipedia articles.[2] 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.[3] The interface is available on Chrome, Safari and Firefox as well as via Wikiwand's website.
Wikiwand was founded in 2013[4] 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."[7]
In March 2015, Wikiwand released an iOS app for iPhone and iPad.[8]
In February 2020, an Android app was under development.[9]
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.[10]
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.[11] On March 1, a Q&A feature powered by GPT-3 was added to the top of all articles.[12]
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.[13] Per the site's Donation page, donations to Wikiwand are made to the Israeli company WIKIPELE LTD.[14]