Would you pay $10 for an entire offline copy of Wikipedia, the crowdsourced encyclopedia of information that you can get on the Web for free? WikiPock, a Paris-based startup, has compressed the entire English language version of Wikipedia to under 4 gigabytes (not including images), and is selling it for mobile phones. The other language versions are smaller (it also comes in German, French, Polish, Dutch, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish).
The application lets you search and read Wikipedia articles on your mobile phone without an Internet connection. It can be downloaded directly, or on its own microSD card. For $15, you can download updates, but only for a year. The first 30 people to send an email to tc[at]wikipock[dot]com will get a free copy. It is available for Blackberry and Windows Mobile phones right now, and will soon be available for the iPhone, Android, and Symbian phones.
Since all of these phones can access Wikipedia via their browsers, what you are paying for is offline access, a mobile-friendly format, and fast search. Consumers seem more willing to pay for mobile apps, even when the same information is free on the Web (witness the success of paid apps in iTunes). And at least WikiPock is giving back to the Wikipedia community. Ten percent of all sales will be donated to the Wikimedia Foundation.
Update: For those with iPhones, there is a competing app called Encyclopedia that does pretty much the same thing, and also costs $10.
Interesting idea, I think they are going in the wrong direction as costs associated with browsing the net on your phone goes down this service would be rendered useless.
You’re right but we believe it will never replace the user experience of accessing wikipedia offline.
Are you idiots? When I need wikipedia, I BROWSE to wikipedia.org on my mobile phone (Android G1). Why would I need to occupy 4GB of memory with STALE version and PAY for it?
Hi LauderdaleStunna ,
It’s for mobile phone which doesn’t have dataplan. Not for iPhone or G1.
1) How fast is your internet connection ?
2) Do you use a webmail or a email client on your Android? which is faster?
The idea itself is not idotic , the cost and revenue must come from some place else not the users/.
Ok so if its for a mobile that doesnt have a data plan how do you download the updates?
Aaakha!
I’ve been thinking about looking for this exact product for some time. I write historical fiction and find myself going to wikipedia or the web every few minutes to check one fact or another. When traveling, that’s problematic and hampers the ability to work. Having a mobile version stored on my laptop that I can access locally would help tremendously. Thanks for the tip.
I wonder how they’ll deal with entries as they get updated
“For $15, you can download updates, but only for a year”
I’m using an iPhone app called “Wikipedia” (I think the name has changed to “Encyclopedia”, and a small price tag added since then). It uses Wikipedias own 2.2 GB text wiki dump. Why pay somebody for something you can download for free?.
We support multiple languages, platforms and provide customer service.
Hitchhiker’s Guide, anyone?
Reminds me of webaroo. They also made wikipedia ‘packs’ and tried to “sell” those for offline computers and mobiles
its like having a 20 volume encyclopedia in your hands. cool!
http://www.heal...tedirectory.com
now this is a good idea. i would buy a game on an sd card to run it on my g1 if it was a decent game… a database of porn videos?…… hmm
This is not such a bad idea. Imagine if you are somewhere travelling and have no connectivity. This would be really useful and it’s only 10$ wtf? I know it’s crisis, but you are exaggerating.
Steam Heavy Industries ’s Wikipedia for the iPhone app aka Encyclopedia.app is cheaper than Wikipock and comes in 17 languages. Already on the App Store.
Details here: http://collison...kipedia-iphone/ and nice review here: http://trusttom...dia-for-iphone/
(Disclaimer: I’m a friend of one of the developers)
For some reason I doubt this will take off. Why? Paying for something, that is already FREE doesn’t really make sense.
WikiPock,
How is this different to TomeRaider? From the demo you have on the web, it looks just like tome raider, with less interface. Are you faster in Search? What does it mean when you say you provide $15 for the udpates? Are they delta updates or just download a new version? How often do you update the content? Daily, Weekly, Monthly or Yearly?
OPERA MINI, why would anyone pay for this?
In answer to the original question, no way in the world I would pay $10 for it. If I need the info I hop online. If online is isn’t available, I wait until it is.
Hmm… Maybe I’ll make a free one and put them out of business.
I think most of users will not pay $10 for it. we can so easily to get info from internet which we need. and it will waste about 4G storage of mobile phone. there are not so much storage for many phones
Everyone whines the same: “why would i pay 10 bucks when’s it’s already free?” Typical Americans I guess.
Well, I spend 1-2 hours a day underground on Tokyo’s subway. Without a signal. So do millions of others.
However, for 10 bucks and no updates?? It won’t be in my pocket.
I use a version of Wikipedia compressed for the iPhone called ‘Wikipedia’. I use it mainly when I don’t have a phone signal, and also sometimes when I do have a signal, as browsing the offline app is faster than browsing Wikipedia on the web.
The Wikipedia app for the iPhone was developed by Patrick Collison and a link to it is here:
http://collison...kipedia-iphone/
I will totally pay for this for my Blackberry. There are probably better offline alternatives on the iPhone, but I’m sick of browsing to the poorly optimized Wikipedia page. When I want to do a wiki lookup, I want it real-time fast because its usually part of a conversation.
Upon reading the title of this article, I immediately went to the site to buy WikiPocket, but I was disappointed to learn that it doesn’t work on Nokia E71; a Symbian S60 based phone. Symbian is still the most used mobile OS in the world. Isn’t it?