iPhone applications are gaining ground, especially in the very competitive tourist field, in which any new idea to make a difference constitutes a sizeable advantage. AudioGuidia is one of these intuitive and fun guides the popularity of which should increase thanks to the richness of its content, which is drawn from Wikipedia.

AudioGuidia spares the laziest globetrotters, who are already addicted to their iPhone, carrying around and reading voluminous tourist guides. This application should suit families whose children often pay little attention to their parents’ long talks. “From our point of view, access to culture in the shape of vocal explanations is a great progress in the tourism field. Travel equals holiday and should be fun,” Grégoire Blanc, one of the two creators of AudioGuidia, claims. Indeed AudioGuidia offers an immersive system that enables people to enjoy the places they are visiting while simply listening to the explanations read by the iPhone.

The telephone geolocalizes the user’s position and displays the places of interest located nearby. The latter can then launch the vocal transcription of the article content. In order to have access to other data, he/she only needs to click on the link that directly refers to the appropriate Wikipedia article. AudioGuidia’s strong point is that the content remains accessible without Internet connection.

Is Wikipedia a reliable source?
Targeting the public at large rather than technophiles, the two creators, who have a passion for History and Art, have, from the beginning, aimed for simplicity of use, which is also obvious considering the documentary source they have chosen, which is the huge database of the collaborative encyclopedia Wikipedia. In France for instance, 43000 articles are accessible and can match the needs of the application users. “Users can thus benefit from a richness of content that cannot compare to classic guides,” Grégoire Blanc explains.

If the articles are drawn from Wikipedia, therefore no checking is being done. What could be a weak point according to certain detractors of the controversial participative encyclopedia is a strong point according to Grégoire Blanc for it constitutes a huge knowledge reservoir and remains under strict checking. “Wikipedia is ruled by a very advanced article checking system. The reliability of this encyclopedia now seems to be admitted thanks to the setting up of several mechanisms, among which the necessity of supporting one’s assertions with external references,” he affirms.

Remaining fun and accessible

A grading system enables, like in classic guides, to make choices according to the amount of time that one has on one’s hands and what is most important, without spending time on details. “Grades are not given by users. We prefer to cross various data sources, which is a somewhat tedious work but that gives very satisfying results. We take all users’ remarks into account to perfect this grading,” Grégoire Blanc adds.

Today AudioGuidia presents countries, from Italy to Switzerland, in French and english. Both AudioGuidia creators are already working on a multilingual emission.

When looking for a good restaurant or a nice hotel, we will still rely, for the moment, on our old dog-eared and annotated guide. Until we get the appropriate application.

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Translated by Oona Bijasson

Related content : application, iPhone, Wikipedia