Wikipedia over SMS & USSD/status

Last update on: 2013-01-monthly

2012-03-14

First partner rollout, pending resolution of remaining ops issues

2012-03-21

MaxSem joined the project to build better MediaWiki API support for Vumi

2012-03-31

We had our first partner roll-out, pending resolution of remaining operations issues. Max Semenik joined the project to build better MediaWiki API support for Vumi and rewrite the Vumi plugin for Wikipedia.

2012-04-10

Max finished his work for better Api support. Patrick worked with Praekelt to finish creating Debian packages for Vumi. Were now taking the packages that PraeKelt built and are using those to build our own

2012-04-monthly

Patrick Reilly wrapped up work packaging Vumi and we're just waiting on the operations team to install the production system. Next, we'll invite users to test it over Jabber, while we work with our various partners to connect it to mobile phone networks. This will wrap up our initial implementation of this project.

2012-06-monthly

We've been making significant progress recently to secure the necessary partnerships that will make it possible to provide Wikipedia over SMS.

2012-07-monthly

Patrick, Jeremy, and Dan worked to make the vumi architecture stack production ready. They worked with the operations team to puppetize the setup in prep for moving it to real hardware. Next month we'll be prepping for a demo with one of our potential partners.

2012-08-02

Production hardware installed waiting for software deployment

2012-08-monthly

Production hardware is now in place and running the latest builds via puppet configuration.

2012-09-monthly

Patrick worked with Jeremy from the Prakelt foundation to finalize the puppet configurations for Vumi. Next the team will be creating the analytics pipelines to measure the effectiveness of the app. Working with various partners we'll launch focused country tests later this year.

2012-10-monthly

The team focused on diagnostics and debugging prior to an initial launch with a partner. We're seeking to hire an engineer specifically to work in this area.

2012-11-monthly

This month, we've worked with volunteer developers at the Bangalore DevCamp to start supporting an important variant of our upcoming text messaging support. We currently have the SMS/USSD combination working and awaiting launch, and we are now working on the SMS-only version for carriers that cannot support USSD.

2013-01-monthly

We are finishing work on capturing the metrics from the SMS server to learn usage numbers and determine how many sessions are completed.