Wikipedia To Deliver Articles Via SMS

Wikipedia is starting to tackle a problem many content providers struggle with–reaching feature phone users on-the-go. Wikipedia’s solution will deliver articles via text message when users send an SMS request. The new product will help expand Wikipedia’s reach in developing countries. We’ve seen many services get creative about enabling rich mobile experiences on feature phones. For some more examples, take a look at M-Pesa’s mobile payments or Saya’s location based services. 

SMS Turns 20

SMS celebrates its 20th birthday. Since the first text message sent on Christmas of 1992, the technology has established mainstream adoption. Today, there are eight trillion texts sent annually, but with the rise of smartphones, apps and the mobile web are becoming a richer medium for marketers. While location-based SMS, polling and group messaging are some interesting developments, it is likely to see SMS slowly decline. But not for the time being.