Cellphedia is a thesis project created by Limor Garcia, a graduate student at the Interactive Telecommunications Program at NYU.

I have created Cellphedia for the curious mobile phone community (which is almost all of us). It is an application that enables its users to send and receive up-to-date encyclopedia-type information amongst each other, on the go, through SMS. Basically, it is the first ubiquitous social encyclopedia.

Research of definitions or really anything, is usually an isolated activity. It requires the person researching and a source of reference (i.e. computer or book). My main inspiration, the website Wikipedia has taken reference research one step further by letting anyone edit any definition in their database and share their pieces of knowledge. Google took an additional step in making our life easier and created an SMS service that allow for research on the mobile phone. With Cellphedia, my goals are to make life easier and interesting. I want to bring definitions alive by using the smartest search engines -us, people!

Cellphedia is not a stand-alone application, it cannot exist without its users. It will take shape and grow according to the people who use it. Specific focus groups will form as required by users. Furthermore, A user will be able to receive an answer to his/her query initially from another user within seconds or minutes. It is intended for anyone who run a busy lifestyle; has to travel long distances, just want to have trivia-type fun. If it is used often, this application will be a valuable tool for those who just want to enrich their knowledge of everything, everywhere!

On August 6, 2005 I had presented Cellphedia in the Wikimania conference - The first int'l Wikimedia conference - in Frankfurt, Germany.
[presentation] [Pics]