Jimmy Wales wants to save the world…with a mobile network

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales is on a mission to save the world. This time his tool of choice isn’t based on democratising knowledge but on connecting people looking to good.

Wales has launched a new mobile network, called The People’s Operator (TPO), which describes itself as a “community of people that are raising money for causes just by being part of it”.

To describe TPO as a mobile network only would be inaccurate, as there’s also a heavy social component. And in what will come as a welcome relief to anyone who feels like social networks have sold their souls, TPO is ad-free. It manages to be so because it’s supported by the mobile network.

The mobile network itself is attempting to grow on a combination of word-of-mouth and the fact that, rather than spending 10% of your bill on advertising, it’ll donate that 10% to a cause of your choice. It’ll also donate 25% of its revenues to charity.

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In a letter published on the TPO site, Wales explains the rationale behind the mobile-cum-social network:

1. Existing social networks treat you as a commodity to be sold to advertisers. This leads naturally to intrusive use of your data and an inherent conflict between what you want and what advertisers need.
2. Mobile phone companies spend huge amounts of money on advertising to sell you what is essentially a commodity service.
3. Yet, we live in an era where word of mouth is more powerful than ever before. All that money spent on advertising is a waste.

Wales describes the social network component as being somewhat like Twitter, “but better”.

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Currently operating in both the US and UK, TPO is a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO), meaning that it doesn’t have to spend anything on building its own infrastructure.

According to Mashable, their are a number of prepaid and monthly deals available, ranging from US$9 in price to US$89.

This is not the first time Wales has been associated with a social network. Back in 2007, Memeburn publisher Matthew Buckland revealed that Wales had showed off a search product that looked much more like a Facebook competitor than a search product.

So far, there are around 73 causes that you can support using TPO