• ADVERTISEMENT

    Mobile Phone Gathering Outlines Successful Projects

    by A. Adam Glenn
    June 18, 2010

    CAMBRIDGE, MASS. — A catalog of pioneering mobile phone projects for news and information was the centerpiece of an informal discussion on the topic at the Future of News and Civic Media Conference at MIT on June 17. And while successful approaches appear to remain relatively few, with most overseas, the two dozen participants at the barcamp gathering left with an array of models to explore.

    Among the U.S.-based examples cited by participants was VoteReport, which used Twitter and eight volunteers to gather some 17,000 user accounts of conditions at U.S. polling places on Election Day 2008, and Mobile Voices, a project to allow day laborers to blog via their phones using a customized Drupal system and multimedia messaging service, or MMS (for more on Mobile Voices, read our two-part post from January).

    Other efforts cited were mostly overseas and included revenue generators such as a text-based headline service that’s bringing in some $60,000 a month for a Guatemalan newspaper, another similar effort in Malaysia, and Bubble Motion‘s Bubbly service in India, which rapidly drew subscribers earlier this year for its service allowing users to send voice messages to multiple followers. Some participants in the discussion noted that some of the biggest successes using mobile were large-scale national health projects, such as those providing educational information on HIV or counseling for drug abuse.

    ADVERTISEMENT

    The discussion turned for a time to specific tools for mobile phone projects, including Mobify.me, which can convert any web site to mobile, and Frontline SMS, which allows text messaging to large groups of followers. The barcamp participants also heard about a VoIP Drupal toolkit described in detail by MIT researcher Leo Burd, who also touted the project in a demo following the barcamp. The toolkit would allow users to record, send and receive audio messages, create and manage audio groups and add audio events to a shared calendar, as well as organize phone-based polls.

    Other mobile resources mentioned during the discussion were a mobile benchmark study that provides metrics for nonprofits to gauge text messaging success, and the MobileActive blog maintained by one of the barcamp organizers.

    Tagged: #fncm frontline sms MIT Future of News and Civic Media mobify.me mobile mobile voices votereport

    One response to “Mobile Phone Gathering Outlines Successful Projects”

    1. I think that’s just great! People nowadays are mobile, what they can readily access are their phones and would likely have it this way. If this would succeed, I think its going to be a good thing. Perhaps, market will boom.

  • ADVERTISEMENT
  • ADVERTISEMENT
  • Who We Are

    MediaShift is the premier destination for insight and analysis at the intersection of media and technology. The MediaShift network includes MediaShift, EducationShift, MetricShift and Idea Lab, as well as workshops and weekend hackathons, email newsletters, a weekly podcast and a series of DigitalEd online trainings.

    About MediaShift »
    Contact us »
    Sponsor MediaShift »
    MediaShift Newsletters »

    Follow us on Social Media

    @MediaShiftorg
    @Mediatwit
    @MediaShiftPod
    Facebook.com/MediaShift