If you are like me, you love wikiHow and you wish you could view articles on your cell phone. Unfortunately, you can’t afford a costly internet data package to do so. I have a (probably far-fetched) idea about a mobile wikiHow text message system. For instance, say you’re watching TV and a commercial says, ‘Play movie triva on your cell phone. Text TRIVIA to 495958495849 to get started!’ Well, that’s kind of what this is. For instance, if you want to look up “How to tie a tie”, you would text wikiHow’s number and say ‘tie a tie’. wikiHow would respond and list articles that match the ‘tie a tie’, and you can select the article that you want to see. Then, wikiHow texts back the article, and you can view the text anytime you want to like a regular text. It’s not foolproof, and regular texting rates would still apply. Any questions?
system
2
I’m not so sure how this deal would go.
If I follow your idea correctly, this is how it goes: Person: Texts wikiHow and say: “Tie a tie”. This is text 1 sent. wikiHow: Texts back with results. This is text 1 reply. Person: *selects article from list*. This is text 2 sent. wikiHow: Texts back article. This is text 2 reply. Instead of playing 4 texts each and every single time - or better yet, 3 texts each time you want to look at per article, why not just use your regular internet on mobile phones?
Data plans are pricey, and generally texting plans are cheaper.
Caidoz
4
I think the main problem here would be with the length of the articles. If texts over there in America are anything like they are on this side of the pond, you’re limited to how long a text could be, and they’re not usually that long. An article could easily be 10 texts long or more, which would end up very costly for whoever’s paying for those texts!
True…but if you have an unlimited texting plan, texts are a lot cheaper than data.
system
6
I came to wH because I had this freaky vision of accessing your interface for instant knowledge, the…prompt from you beginning with “How to.”
Perhaps the time has come for a mobile English version of wikiHow. Articles could be created, possibly based on English wikiHow articles, except the information is condensed to be used as a text. A whole new database doesn’t sound that bad to me.
The thing about wikiHow articles is that they are pure text, so they could go right into text messages without many problems.
Maniac
9
I like the idea but I don’t think it’s plausible for wikiHow for a few reasons. There would have to be a demand for this system that outweighs the cost of running it as, after all, wikiHow would have to pay a decent amount of money to get something like this started. As mentioned previously, the amount of texts it would take to send a whole article would be many, and not only would this be annoying to get spammed with 10 texts at one time, it also probably isn’t easy to read an article text by text and have to click around like that. As time goes on, cell phone companies are moving more and more towards offering and supporting ONLY smartphones which require a data package. With these phones it would not only be easier to just access wikiHow using an internet browser, but it would also be more efficient. While I don’t think texting is going to become obsolete anytime soon, I think that the availability of data packages will only increase.
system
10
Have you ever printed
out an article? I had to force myself to just print 1 of 2 pages because the tips, warnings, and other stuff took the 2nd page.
system
11
hmm; “Change a Tire”, with just the first sentence of each step sent, expandable by steps…not txt, tho.
system
12
You mean like wikiHow for mobile? wikiHow: How-to instructions you can trust.
I think its a nice idea but yeah its not plausible. It should be given a thought.
Were talking about a version so that people can access wikiHow without any kind of internet
Would this be like the ipod using Safari? If so I’d support, if the website was high speed, not as fast as a computer(Or ipod for that matter), just not so it takeshours just to acces an article. Can you edit from a phone? Like can you text "Edit article___________________ and edit it just like normal wikihow?
Elocina
16
I feel that Google mobile search, ChaCha and KGB do something very similar, since you can call or text them with any question and get an answer via text message. I think that this would be a costly undertaking, which would require hiring at least 2 or 3 more people and since there are already services that do this, that it might not make any sense to create one just for wikiHow. Maybe partnering with one of those companies would make more sense instead of starting from scratch.
I know with one of my cell phone carriers, a basic data plan costs $5 less to add than the unlimited texting plan.
Now, If I’m like other people, my phone inbox is at 90% capacity and I need to constantly delete messages to get new ones. I wouldn’t want that many texts filling up my mailbox.
system
20
And if you have family across the country, you’d basically lock every one of those texts. That’s less space in my inbox for other contacts.
