Wikipedia Zero


“Information wants to be free.”
-         Stewart Brand

Most of us take Wikipedia for granted. We tend to forget that access to Wikipedia requires access to a PC/laptop/phone and access to an Internet connection. We tend to forget those pre-requisites just the way we never remember that there is air around us.

And even with the telecom revolution all over the world, things haven’t changed that much when it comes to Internet access: most people (I say “most”, so that’s most of Africa and poorer India and poorer China) still don’t have a data connection. And even the ones that do often have a slow connection. To summarize, there are 2 problems:
1)      Data plans still aren’t affordable by everyone,
2)     Connectivity speeds are low.
Hardly the setup where those people are likely to surf much via their phones, is it?

Which is why the Wikimedia Foundation came up with Wikipedia Zero, an initiative to enable mobile access free of data charges. And keeping in mind that people with no data connections are likely to have phones that have small screen sizes, they decided to support a text only version of Wikipedia.

But free? C’mon, you say, there’s no such thing as a free lunch. Someone’s got to be footing the costs. And you’d be right. So here’s how it is planned to work:
-         Telecom carriers who tie up with the Wikimedia Foundation would host the contents of the text only version of Wikipedia on their servers.
-         Since the data would be accessed via the telecom carrier, they wouldn’t bill it.
-         So what’s in it for the carrier? Well, the Wikipedia data would support (text only) banner ads: the carrier could either sell those ads or put their own name for publicity.
-         Additionally, the Wikimedia Foundation insists that the banner clearly indicate that the data is free. This is to encourage users to continue to access Wikipedia without worrying if they would get billed for it.
-         And keeping in mind that people may click on links within the Wikipedia article that takes them to all those not-free sites, the site will warn you that are you heading for not-free sites and if you really want to go ahead.

Sounds like a really good initiative to give everyone in the world access to the largest encyclopedia in the world. I hope they succeed.

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