SPOTLIGHTm

WikiTap for iPhone

What is it?

Available for iPhone and T-Mobile’s Android-Powered G1, WikiTap allows users to quickly search for articles on Wikipedia and contribute to articles by adding photos and videos (YouTube-powered) directly from their phones.

How much does it cost?

Free.

Who is it good for?

Anyone who uses Wikipedia (is that everyone at this point?). People who like to quickly search for information to win arguments. People who go to pub trivia and like to cheat. Pretty much anyone looking for information that doesn’t want to go through the hassle of filtering through a Google search.

Summary

We can’t see why anyone wouldn’t want to have an app like this one their phones. There are a wealth of people-powered, Wikipedia based applications out there, but considering WikiTap is free, stable, and completely functional, this is one of our favorite applications on iPhone since the application’s release earlier this month. The predictive search function is great and the ability to have user-generated relevant videos and photos adds to the experience - making it a little entertaining amidst a whole lot of functional. We’d almost say that WikiTap is a “must have” application.

Keep it or Delete it?

Keep it.

WikiTap is one of those applications that will actually save you a bunch of time doing something that you already do on your phone - Google searches for random information about people, places, movies, and anything else. Sometimes, between the Safari browser crashes, shrinking and enlarging of text, SEO-guru trickiness, it’s just too hard and time-consuming to find the answer to what you’re looking for.

Enter Michael Scott’s favorite reputable source, Wikipedia.

Now, most of us are familiar with Wikipedia and the information it provides. For those of us who aren’t (like those people who are apparently still discovering YouTube), Wikipedia is like a people-powered encyclo-dictionary, where sources from around the web are gathered to create informative entries on whatever you might be looking to learn more about.

True, there has been some gaming of the Wikipedia system in the past, but for the most part, the site works as a generally credible source for general information about specific things.

What’s great about Wikitap is how easy it is. You open. You search. You read.

In addition to these basics, you can now “watch” as well on WikiTap and help build out the media community by contributing YouTube videos and photos (more videos than photos right now, due to easy of use) to the entries by tapping the “+” symbol on any of the entries.

In order to avoid irrelevant videos, WikiTap depends on the users to give entries a thumbs up or thumbs down (a la Pandora) to help sort through any clutter and make sure that the most relevant videos are show with each entry.

It’s a little tough to add relevant pictures, simply because most of us likely don’t have pictures of celebrities or movie-related photos on our phones (can upload directly from the camera or photo library), but adding videos can be done with just a few taps.

Users can search for videos within the application (looks like they’re mostly, if not all from YouTube), then select a video to add to the entry library. It’s really convenient and encouraging to users to help build out the content because they’re not being forced to open a new browser or do anything besides stay within the application to contribute content. Make it simple and people will do it. WikiTap does this perfectly.

Also nice is the ability to email entries to people - quickly making us iPhone users forget about the inability to copy and paste.

WikiTap is incredibly functional, useful, and best of all, it’s free. Not only does the site keep to the Wikipedia tradition of free access to information, but the ability to contribute and add media to the community also makes the app feel like a mini-version of the actual site.

And well, you’ll never lose pub trivia ever again.