Wapedia Makes Mobile Device Searching More Efficient

September 9, 2012

Mobile device searching can prove difficult, even with mesmerizing products such as Apple’s Siri. A good go-to resource to try when looking for information on your cell phone or tablet is Wapedia from Wikipedia. The mobile version of the well-loved free online encyclopedia makes standard Wikipedia pages viewable on smaller displays, reduces image sizes, and includes a search engine independent of Wikipedia servers. The Wapedia page tells us more about the technology:

“Wapedia offers the most recent version of every article, which is done by using a combination of a proxy-like behavior and a local article database. This combination provides both high speed and up-to-date articles and low load and traffic for the Wikipedia servers. The copying of data is one way, from Wikipedia to Wapedia, and so Wapedia does not offer the ability to edit pages. Edits must be made to the original page on the Wikipedia site, which propagate through to Wapedia over time.”

Versions for Apple devices, Android, and WebOS applications exist. This mobile solution injects adverts directly into the Wikipedia articles through HTML or in the applications. We think this search solution from the free-content giant is impressive and think other companies and app-developers should take note of the technology.

Andrea Hayden, September 09, 2012

Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext.

Written by Stephen E. Arnold · Filed Under Mobile, News, Search

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Stephen E. Arnold monitors search, content processing, text mining and related topics from his high-tech nerve center in rural Kentucky. He tries to winnow the goose feathers from the giblets. He works with colleagues worldwide to make this Web log useful to those who want to go "beyond search". Contact him at sa [at] arnoldit.com. His Web site with additional information about search is arnoldit.com.