Cellphedia, a SMS Social Network Service

Roland Piquepaille writes "Based on ideas taken from Wikipedia and dodgeball, Cellphedia allows its members to broadcast questions to its community and receive answers, using SMS text messaging on cell phones. Here is how it works, according to "Cellphedia Melds Facts with Mobile Smart Mobs" from E-Commerce Times. First, you register for free on the site and you indicate your subjects of interest. If you want to ask a question, it is sent to all the members who expressed interest in this particular subject. Finally, the first answer received by Cellphedia is sent back to you. This means that later answers, which could have been more accurate, are discarded. But this service is still very young and its creator is working hard to improve it. Read more for some examples of questions and answers stored on the Cellphedia central server."

Comments

I'm violating your copyright, Roland! SUCK IT!

[Anonymous Coward]

Cellphedia, a SMS Social Network Service

Based on ideas taken from Wikipedia and dodgeball , Cellphedia allows its members to broadcast questions to its community and receive answers, using SMS text messaging on cell phones. Here is how it works, according to " Cellphedia Melds Facts with Mobile Smart Mobs " from E-Commerce Times. First, you register for free on the site and you indicate what are your subjects of interest. If you want to ask a question, it is sent to all the members who expressed interest in this particular subject. Finally, the first answer received by Cellphedia is sent back to you. This means that later answers, which could have been more accurate, are discarded. But this service is still very young and its creator is working hard to improve it. Read more...

Here is a general description of this service, created by Limor Garcia as part of her thesis while at New York University.

Inspired by Wikipedia, the all-volunteer, online community encyclopedia, and Dodgeball, a cell phone-based social networking service, Cellphedia allows its members to broadcast questions to its community and receive answers, all through a mobile phone.

Registration for the service is free at the Cellphedia Web site. After registering, members choose areas that they're interested in -- art, architecture, food, music, etc. A member can ask a question in any area, but the questions go to people who have chosen the area as one that interests them.

Questions and answers are sent and received using SMS on your cell phone. And as I wrote above, only the first answer received by CellPhedia is sent back to the person who asked a question.

Unlike Wikipedia, answers to questions via Cellphedia aren't subjected to community review to assess their accuracy. And while multiple members might answer a question, only the first answer received by the system is forwarded to an inquirer.

Garcia noted that group editing of answers is her next priority for the service. "I'm going to open it up for people to correct answers as well," she said.

Interviewed for this article, Howard Rheingold, from Smart Mobs , said that Cellphedia was another example of the convergence between technologies such as cell phone, computers and Internet.

"The phone gives you instant communication wherever you are," he explained. "And the Internet enables you to connect with people who share an interest. Combining that gives you the ability to create something like Wikipedia with a social network."

"It remains a question about whether she's going to get a sufficient critical mass," he noted. "Wikipedia works because there's a sufficient number of people working on it."

Now, let's look at some examples of questions and answers stored on the Cellphedia central server. As you can see, there are all kinds of requests.

• Short question, short answer
  Q: age new pope
  A: 78
• Short question, long answer
  Q: what's a phreak
  A: a phreak is someone who is highly skilled in the use of phone systems. phreaksare considered a subset of hackers.
• Long question, short answer
  Q: does someone know how to install osx tiger on to an ipod for later installation on an ibook?
  A: not possible
• A question without answer
  Q: where can i find info on time travel?

For another point of view about this service, you can read this article from Wired News, "

Answers...

[Hogwash McFly]

Answers to questions, eh?

Such as, 'How does Roland Piquepaille sleep at night'?

Go to hell!

[CypherXero]

Roland Piquepaille, go to hell!

First Question Received

[Scoria]

This message was immediately received by Cellphedia by SMS:

who iz rolex pickapal n y iz he on slashdot lol lmao

Great idea

[Mensa Babe]

It's just like Wikipedia only with one-sentence articles with no punctuation, every query costs you arm and leg and reading with 2-point font makes you blind in the process. I expect it to be a great success. Cellphones are truly amazing.

Cell Phone Frist Post System ???

[Dave21212]

No, really... that's what it says.

With all the advances in KM over the years, maybe a more interesting approach would be to have the system aggregate/rate responses over a period of time and respond with the top 3 or so. As planned, I would think the system described is less than useful, it would be downright obnoxious once it hit critical mass (go read every first post on /. for a preview).

spam?

[ErichTheWebGuy]

I see a massive potential for spam.

1. Setup a SMS bridge
2. Register for all topics of interest
3. write a script that replies almost instantly with "I hear that all the time, here is an in-depth article on my website" that points to whatever porn/free ipod/whatever spam site
4. profit!!!

Accuracy and reliability?

[britneys 9th husband]

If you use this, how do you have any assurance that the answers you get are actually accurate? Given the number of uninformed people walking around, not to mention people who think it's funny to hand out deliberate misinformation, wouldn't this be practically useless? And you can completely forget about any questions that would attract commercially motivated answers (e.g. Where is the nearest gas station?)

MOD PARENT DOWN! REASON: SPAM

[Anonymous Coward]

Moderators, parent is nothing more but SPAM! Look carefully and you'll see that the link in "Visit BlogAds to check the following facts for yourself" is NOT a direct link to www.blogads.com but a redirect from other domain to hide the fact that it points to a referer link to blogads! Read carefully and see that the poster actually promotes blogads saying how much anyone having a blog can earn and posts it on slashdot where many people want to earn money that way. Then the link is a paid link and the poster will get a percentage of money generated by all of us who sign up with that program after following that link. Briliant, isn't it? But it is SPAM and should be moderated as such. Instead this offtopic SPAM is moderated as Score:5! Moderators, are you blind or stupid? MOD IT DOWN!

Re:Why is it ALWAYS Timmy...

[fireman sam]

Hang on, let me check...

Me: *SMS* "Y Timmy 4 teh Roland?"
sending...
1 new message...
Answer: Get cheap viagra for extra hardness

Anyone else think that this will be a race against legit answers and spam?