Wikipedia and Geolocation Collide to Create wikinear.com

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Wikipedia and Geolocation Collide to Create wikinear.com

March 31st, 2008 MobileFreak

Simon Willison is a smart guy. I can tell from his blog.

On this recent blog post, Simon introduces wikinear.com, a free mobile service that provides information about nearby locations found in Wikipedia. The intriguing aspect is that the service utilizes geolocation to pinpoints your location, then automatically retrieves information about the nearby points of interest found in Wikipedia.

Simon’s idea of how this mobile service came about was interesting:

The idea for the site came from living in Oxford for a year. The city is full of beautiful old historic buildings (many of them colleges), but very few of them are labeled or signposted. With wikinear.com and a GPS hooked up to Fire Eagle, I can pull out my phone and see a list of the closest points of interest, plotted on a handy map.

Technologies used in wikinear.com:

You will need a beta invite to Yahoo! Fire Eagle in order to use the service. I have a few extra invites, so if you need one, send me a note at mobilefreakmobilemammoth.com. First come, first served.

If you are not excited about the potential of mobile apps after reading his summary of not only what wikinear does, but what other mobile services are possible on a tight budget, then you may need a pulse check.