The online encyclopedia Wikipedia is articles mobile provide users, via sms, to ask. The service over the coming months will be rolled out and is in line with the introduction of a fully text-based edition, for users with limited bandwidth.
The service is part of the goal of Wikimedia to make its services better to make available in developing countries and emerging economies, where people do about mobile phones, but often not about smartphones with mobile internet. It is a project in which users have access to Wikipedia via sms and services via the gsm-protocol ussd, wap) can be used.
“Users can request it via sending text messages to Wikipedia and, within seconds, they get the article on their phone”, says Kul Takanao Wadhwa, who directs the mobile branch of the Wikimedia foundation, on the website of the Knight Foundation. That foundation is Wikimedia supported with 600,000 dollars to the 24 million articles better to make available for developing countries.
With the money, among other things, the full text-based Wikipedia Zero has been developed. The sms service is a next step in that project. Wikimedia is negotiating with mobile operators worldwide to get free access to Wikipedia Zero to offer. Currently would be 230 million users in 36 countries access to the text-based encyclopedia. If there is a fee to be connected to the sms-service is not known.