Orange Strikes up Deal with Wikipedia
By Simon Sage on Thursday, April 23rd, 2009 at 9:02 AM PST In Orange, Partnerships
The fount of all user-generated knowledge, Wikipedia, will be working with European carrier Orange to mobilize their online encyclopaedia. The exact format Wikipedia will take is a bit vague right now, but it sounds like the vast majority of the services will be web-based. That means search bars in official Orange mobile web portals and context-pertinent Wikipedia links in mobile destinations. Third parties have provided a lot of Wikipedia functions already, but the foundation has been making its own official, tentative steps into the mobile world lately with a mobile version of their website released over the winter.
Between this deal with Orange, their involvement with the Palm (NSDQ: PALM) Pre, and the potential for future manufacturer/carrier partnerships, Wikipedia will start becoming a common sight in mobile. They might not be moving as fast as, say, Google (NSDQ: GOOG), but I think we’ll take what we can get. France, UK, Spain and Poland will be the first to get the Wiki treatment through Orange, with more likely to follow.
[Orange via Cellular News]
