site, but it does prove that
there is movement toward doing more and more things on cell phones. I
do not know that it is actually what I am hoping that we can achieve
however.
Wikipedia is perfect for this type of endeavor simply because all the
information on it is free, and saved in a centralized, basic standard
(I am assuming) all of which should be able to easily be pulled into
whatever cell phone form we would need to use.
I am not looking for some complex site with user interaction, only one
which allows the user to punch in a keyword, get search return
results, and then see the article (obviously broken down screen by
screen). This would not need to be complex, and there are few to no
security issues that I can think of if we make this read-only.
Wikipedia can gain greatly from the concept that this would push.
Publicly available information accessibly anywhere that a Internet
enabled cell phone is accessible. Would it be 100% useful in the first
phase? probably not. But, it could (and I believe) should be done.
Again, I do not know the protocol here, so who is in charge of
determining actual product movements?
On Fri, 16 Jul 2004 19:20:45 +0000, David Gerard
<fun(a)thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
On 07/16/04 14:06, Alex Hottenstein wrote:
Simply stated, by creating a cell phone web
interface for the
Wikipedia database, instant access to a dynamic encyclopedia could be
given to all cell phone users worldwide. From what I can tell of the
site, the infrastructure to undertake such a project is all there.
I do not know if this is a project that you are already considering,
but if not, I would be happy to lead this initiative, and am very
interested in recruiting others who are interested in becoming
involved in the project.
You want
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mobile_subdomain
This is an idea that's in the air at the moment. Have you
seen this?
http://www.kwickee.com
Have a look at this thing and read the FAQs and marketing
documents.
It's a collaborative user-contributed articles thing for
mobile phones in the UK, done on a commercial basis.
"The first group to welcome new technologies and ideas are
predominantly the young. Since this group is also the largest
to own browser-enabled mobile phones, we anticipate the bulk
of the market for Kwickee Bitesize will be 16-30-year-olds.
It is also understood that the 30+ market use the Kwickee
website - taking full advantage of the special features and
subscription services."
(i.e., it looks like the sort of wishful thinking dot-com
marketers come up with on a Tuesday afternoon down the pub.)
I think they're onto a loser, because their intended market
uses Internet-capable phones. Which would therefore be quite
able to access any web page readable in Opera. Like OURS,
let's say.
They plan a *significant* marketing push for this thing
(from
http://www.kwickee.com/2a_marketing1.html):
"How will Kwickee Bitesize be advertised?
A major marketing programme is planned for the first year of
launch. This will include a major SMS campaign, advertising
in magazines, daily newspapers, cinemas and over the Internet.
The marketing campaign has been awarded to a UK top three
Advertising & Data Marketing Agency."
"How big is the UK market for Kwickee Bitesize?"
"There are approximately 30 million people with mobile handsets
capable of receiving a Bitesize. Alternatively, anyone with an
Internet connection can receive a Kwickee Bitesize."
Dot-com taught us that trying to *start* an idea as a business
that your competitor could start in their garage is unlikely
to work.
We should be able to ride this big time. How does Wikipedia
look on browser-capable mobile phones? Do we have any automatic
function to pull the intro from all articles (that have an
intro) and just send that on request?
(This'll make news style for article intros a better idea ...)
- David.
_______________________________________________
Wikipedia-l mailing list
Wikipedia-l(a)Wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l