Sure, California has eBay and Apple, and Washington state can lay claim to uber-tech evil empire Microsoft, but the Bay area has its own cyberspace heavyweight. Would you believe that Internet darling Wikipedia was created by a guy living in St. Pete? An online open-source encyclopedia (that means anyone can edit it), Wikipedia was created by ’burg resident Jimmy “Jimbo” Wales in 2001. Since then, Wikipedia has become an Internet phenomenon and Wales has kept it local, setting up the nonprofit Wikimedia Foundation (which oversees the operation of Wikipedia and off-shoots like Wikiquote and Wikibooks) in St. Petersburg. Up next for Wales is the for-profit Wikia, Inc., based out of California. Hey, even new-technology brainiacs have got to earn a living somehow. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Wales.
This article appears in Sep 13-19, 2006.