Did you know the founder of Wikipedia had a search engine? By the numbers, it's unlikely, since Wikia Search, Jimmy Wales's would-be Google killer, only attracted 10,000 users a month. He's now closing it.

Wales blamed the economy for Wikia Search's failure, which aimed to have volunteer editors revise Web search results rather than relying on an algorithm like Google's. But could his diffident attitude been the real cause? He did find Wikia Search useful — for impressing a girlfriend. Wales mentioned it in sex-laden IM chats with Canadian right-wing pundit Rachel Marsden, with whom he had a brief relationship early in 2008. "Work? Do I have a job or something?" Wales asked Marsden. "Oh right, I am supposed to be designing a Google-killing search engine so I can buy a jet!" (Later, Wales dumped Marsden on Wikipedia.)