Beta No More: Wikipedia Mobile Officially Launches with Important Changes for Editors
Although Wikipedia's mobile site has been in various stages of development for quite some time, Wikimedia's Lead Mobile Developer Hampton Catlin recently announced on the Wikimedia technical blog that the site is live on a new server and ready for action.
Currently, the site supports iPhone, Kindle, Android, and Palm Pre in English and German with other languages in the works in various stages of translation. "Our goal," wrote Catlin, "is to grow slowly and do it really well... Things are looking good so far."
Current breakdowns of site traffic show that most users of the mobile site are browsing on iPhones and that the overwhelming majority of users are reading in English:
In a typical hour, several hundred pages are served in German, with single- or double-digit results for pages served in French, Dutch, Japanese, and Spanish.
Ten million pages were served during the site's entire test period. Within the past 24 hours, however, the mobile site has already received 2.3 million hits. Stats on the mobile site are updated every hour on the hour at the Wikipedia Statistics page.
An important note for Wikipedia editors is the use of default redirects to the mobile gateway. Editors working on the fly from mobile devices will have to click a link reading "View this page on main Wikipedia" to disable the redirect. Catlin wrote of this change, "The 99% of people using mobile devices to read Wikipedia on-the-go have a seemless experience... We suspect an initial outcry from the editors that use their mobile devices, but hope that will calm down."
The mobile site is "running Ruby, a first for Wikimedia!" said Catlin in an email to us this afternoon. Other technical information is available here. Updates on Wikimedia/Wikipedia mobile information will be available through the Wikimedia Mobile Twitter account.
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The first link in this article is linking to "mobile.wikipedia.org" which is a HAWHAW-powered website. The correct address for the new official mobile wikipedia is m.wikipedia.org.
I think they did a great job with it, and now I don't really see much reason to use a native iphone app for wikipedia anymore. :)
recommend (a) not using nearly the exact same shade of color on graph lines, (b) including an x-axis label, and (c) not including two complete flat-lines in the same graph
@Dan, yes, we got the same info just now from Catlin and have made the correction - thanks for noting it!
@James The graphs were from Wikimedia. And the flatlines serve to illustrate the absolutely negligible numbers for non-iPhone and non-Android users and non-English-reading users.
Ha! I just noticed this and wondered if it was new! Looks great as a user.
interesting, gonna test it now.
I like the articles having show & hide buttons for each of the sections. Makes it easier to navigate on the iPhone.
Cool, I Love wikkipedia ... Im going to give it a try on my mobile.
Internet usage on mobiles seems to be really kicking off. I notice that there still doesnt seem to be a flash player for mobiles yet though.
Hier sind Sie richtig! Original Zubehör für dein Handy - BlackBerry, Samsung, HTC und iPhone - größte Auswahl an Taschen, Ladegeräten, Schutzfolien, Headsets
So does this mean we'll see a MediaWIKI mobile soon? Please?
Excellent work!
This is my first visit to your website, and though I've missed the date to enter your blog into that competition (by 23 hours!), I've bookmarked you for next year (you've got my vote!!). :-)