Users can record, edit, and publish stories with their iPhones. It was created with radio in mind and enables users to easily record and then edit interviews on an iPhone mobile device.
Hindenburg Mobile is an on-the-phone audio recording and editing suite. It lets journalists media producers concentrate on telling stories without having to deal with technical hassles. Hindenburg allows a user to drag & drop and plug & play to record and then edit audio on the phone. Users do not need to worry about bit rates, sample rates, codecs, etc. Hindenburg Mobile integrates with the desktop editing suite from the same company, Hindenburg Journalist (in beta). The Hindenburg products are tested by radio professionals, journalists, content providers, and university students.
Tool Category:
App resides and runs on a mobile phone
Key Features :
Application is available for download from iTunes. There is also a beta version of Hindenburg Journalist, a desktop audio editing suite, available for download.
Ustream is a live interactive broadcast platform that enables anyone with an Internet connection and a camera to create videos. Ustream uses a one-to-many model, which means that the user can broadcast to an audience of unlimited size. Ustream's platform has been used to broadcast everything from high school sporting events to Hollywood movie premieres. People are Ustreaming many events political events such as debates, speeches, rallies.
Tool Category:
App resides and runs on a mobile phone
Is a web-based application/web service
Key Features :
Broadcast from Nokia S60 phones and Android phones. Record and upload from iPhone 3GS. Watershed is Ustream's self-serve platform for live, interactive video. Watershed offers plug-and-play as well as API integration solutions. Organizations both small and large can customize Watershed to meet their specific needs and build global communities around shared live experiences.
Branching out into the mobile space can have big rewards for media organizations that take the time to do it right. However, recognizing the right moments, investing in the right technology, and marketing to the right audience are tough to do. To learn how one mainstream media organization is doing it we called Robert Spier, Director of Content Development for NPR Digital Media, to talk about NPR’s mobile strategy.
Five years ago, NPR first entered the digital media space with podcasts. According to Spier, the lessons NPR learned from this first foray into the 'new' media world provided the jumping off point for later content dissemination and engagement via the mobile web and mobile application. He says,
I had the pleasure of attending the Global Voices Citizen Media Summit in Santiago, Chile last week. The summit brought together bloggers, activists, and thinkers working to advance citizen media all around the world. While the discussions that took place were informative, most presentations and panels fell short in recognizing the role mobile phones have played and exploring the potential mobile phones can play in citizen media. I'd like to highlight some of the potential for mobiles in citizen media that were not adequately discussed.
At the recent Global Voices Citizen Media Summit in Santiago, Chile, I facilitated as session on "Mobile Phone as a Tool for Reporting." We started off the discussion with the question of whether SMS is useful for reporters.
David Sasaki of Global Voices expressed skepticism about SMS as a reporting tool. Sasaki noted that Rising Voices, a Global Voices project that provides small funds to budding citizen media projects, had tried to find an SMS or mobile-based reporting project to fund, but hasn't been able to. Instead, David saw projects using technologies like Twitter for reporting. The 160 characters of SMS messages is simply not enough, David proposed, and pointed out that similar technologies like Twitter are more useful because they are able to transcend the character limitations as they can include links to much lengthier content.
PixelPipe gives users the ability to post content to many social networks simultaneously. One does not need to log into each site to post with Pixel Pipe's platform.
Pixelpipe is a media distribution gateway that allows users to publish text, photo, video and audio files once through Pixelpipe and have the content distributed across over 100 social networks, photo/video sites and blogs, and online storage. PixelPipe provides a number of mobile and desktop applications for users.
Tool Category:
App resides and runs on a mobile phone
Is a web-based application/web service
Key Features :
Upload media via destop or mobile phone and share it with numerous social networks, sites, and blogs. The platform has been built from the ground up and is automated. The architecture allows for changes and capacity additions when needed. PixelPipe has tools for most mobile and web platforms available for download.
Podlinez is a free service that lets users in the United States listen to podcasts on their phones. To find a podcast phone number, one can enter a RSS feed URL into the Podlinez website or browse the directory. If a podcast is not available in the directory, one can add it to be available within minutes.
Tool Category:
Is a web-based application/web service
Key Features :
Podlinez connects podcasts to phone numbers so users can call a number and listen to a podcast for free. It provides users with a comprehensive directory of podcasts where new ones can be added.
A large amount of news and information is produced around various events and topics. Mapping and visualization can be useful ways to track this content. There is a need for tools that allow users to search and track news and information, and republish some of that news and information. Both the back-end and front-end systems allow for mapping and visualization of that information.
Managing News originated as a news aggregation and republishing platform heavily integrated with RSS/Atom. Users can track a diverse set of RSS/Atom feeds, visualize them, and republish selected reports on a platform that allows for mapping and pluggable visualizations. Managing News has subsequently added SMS functionality to the system. The system is based on Drupal, and integrates several open source projects including OpenLayers, SimplePie, and many Drupal plug-ins.
Tool Category:
App resides and runs on a server
Key Features :
Aggregate RSS/Atom news
Republish news as RSS/Atom in customizable channels, or directly to Facebook, Twitter, or email.
Show news as list, map, timeline graphs, or visualized in other ways.
Search news.
Integrate SMS input with SlingshotSMS.
Configurable location tagging and mapping.
Main Services:
Location-Specific Services and GIS
Information Resources/Information Databases
Tool Maturity:
Currently deployed
Platforms:
Linux/UNIX
Mac/Apple/iPhone
Windows
Current Version:
1
Program/Code Language:
PHP
Organizations Using the Tool:
United States federal government, National Democratic Institute, Drupal. See the examples page.
Mapping incidences via SMS has been in the news lately. From the swine flu to requests for assistance to election data, visualization of data submitted and collected with mobile phones and via other channels is a hot topic. We asked our special contributor, Melissa Loudon to compare two platforms: Ushahidi and Managing News. While different, both offer powerful capabilities for mapping reports, news of incidences, and SMS-submitted data.
In this "How-To," we describe the installation process, SMS integration, and the mapping functionality of both platforms. If you have deployed either one of the platforms or have others to add for future reviews, please leave a comment! The full "How-To" article can be found here.
Mapping SMS Incident Reports: A Review of Ushahidi and Managing News data sheet 17466 Views
Author:
Melissa Loudon
Abstract:
In this how-to, we test out two systems for SMS incident mapping: Ushahidi and Managing News. Incident mapping is a simple but powerful concept that does what it says - using SMS to report a given incidence and mapping the data geographically. This article compares the two platforms, their pros and cons, and outlines when to use either.
In this how-to, we test out two systems for SMS incident mapping. Incident mapping is a simple but powerful concept that does what it says - using SMS to report a given incidence and mapping the data geographically.
It has been used in various scenarios ranging from reports from natural disasters to tracking violent crime, citizen reporting in elections.
Ushahidi, a platform for map and time-based visualizations of text reports, has been used most prominently in crisis mapping. The first instance of Ushahidi tracked the post-election violence in Kenya in 2007, closely followed by an instance covering outbreaks of xenophobic violence in South Africa in early 2008. Following the Haiti earthquake in early 2010, an Ushahidi deployment at Tufts University provided a platform for aggregating, translating and disseminating incident reports and requests for assistance. Ushahidi is an open-source PHP/Javascript platform.
Praekelt Foundation: Young Africa Live, SocialTXT, and TXTalert data sheet 8139 Views
The Praekelt Foundation was founded in 2007 as the nonprofit/NGO offshoot of Praekelt Consulting. The NGO now runs three programs that work to better the lives of people living in poverty in South Africa. Each of those programs (Young Africa Live, SocialTXT, and TXTalert) use mobiles to achieve that goal.
Or: Why the 1 Million T-Shirts x Twitter is the most important thing happening in Tech4Dev on Wednesday, 28 April 2010.
This is how realtime information will inform the future of development work.
A guy came up with an idea: "Let's collect 1 million t-shirts from the US and send them to Africa." Ok. It's an obviously bad idea. It's probably a viral promotion for his own company. It was covered by Mashable on Tuesday the 27th of April. None of this is revolutionary.
The guy social-mediazed his "idea". That's how you go viral. "Hey, twitter, facebook, THE INTERNETS...let's collect 1 million t-shirts...." This is what one does, these days. Make it public, and put it out there. It's an idea for "aid" to "Africa." Why not. It's got a hokey website that said (as of Wednesday, 28 April) "625 shirts collected." Inflamatory. engaging. Also not revolutionary.
This tool lets users record and edit audio files on mobile phones. This is useful for reporters, for example, who need to turn raw audio files into into news stories in the field. Files can then be sent instantly over WiFi or a cellular connection to an editor or upload to a website.
VC Audio Pro is an advanced mobile journalism tool for radio news. It allows users to record, edit and send professional quality audio news clips or full stories from their smartphones.
Tool Category:
App resides and runs on a mobile phone
Key Features :
VC Audio Pro enables journalists to record and edit audio into a news story on the go. It replaces cumbersome and costly recording equipment. The company claims that the tools has an easy-to-use interface that is compatible with newsroom systems for instant integration and playout. There are some workflow customization options as well.
Two mobile tools that we have been watching with interest have new versions out and available for public beta and testing.
Freedom Fone
Freedom Fone, developed by Kubatana in Zimbabwe, is an interactive voice response system that allows callers to access audio information on their mobile phones. It is aimed at organizations who want to set interactive up audio news services for their audiences. Freedom Fone is now out in version 1.5 and available for public testing and use.
While there are many such interactive voice systems (Asterisk is the most well-known open source VOIP platform, with many commercial, open source versions such as Trixbox using Asterisk), Freedom Fone is focused on an NGO audience with easy install and setup that minimizes the need for technical expertise.
Finding data on media consumption can be difficult, but the real trouble comes in interpreting it – what does it mean if people in one country get most of their news from radio, while in another from television? How are mobile phones changing the media and communications landscape? How can this data be used to help keep the greatest number of people informed? And why does this information matter?
AudienceScapes, a project of InterMedia, tracks media and ICT consumption in developing countries around the world. Currently the site has detailed information about Ghana, Uganda, Kenya, Sierra Leone, Columbia, Nicaragua, Guatemala and Peru. The site is a useful resource for detailed breakdowns on how different communities are using and consuming media.
On Wednesday evening I was lucky enough to attend the first ever "Failfaire", organized by MobileActive.org where several brave souls agreed to present their failed "Information Technology for Development" projects, explaining why they failed and what they learned from them.
I work on knowledge management in UNICEF, and have a strong interest in improving how we learn from our experience. This event (which was certainly not a failure!) was interesting to our work from at least two points of view:
1. The lessons learned from the projects themselves
2. The idea for the event itself and whether this might be something we could try ourselves.
There were four presentations during the meeting:
Bradford Frost presented on Mobileimpact.org a project to recycle old cellphones and donate them to Africa.
MobileActive hosted the inaugural FAILfaire last night, bringing together mobile technologists and NGOs to talk about failed projects in M4D and ICT4D. Presenters talked about their failed projects, answering the questions: "What was the project? What was the failure? Why did it fail? And what would you do differently next time?”
The event was filled to capacity with more than 70 people. The five presenters made us think (and laugh), and the audience asked some great questions. For those of you who couldn’t be there, here’s a quick look at the failed projects presented at the first (of what we hope will be many) FAILfaire.
Bradford Frost: MobileImpact.org? Not exactly...
Starting off the evening was Bradford Frost, who told the story of his failed non-profit venture, MobileImpact.org. The goal of his project was to bridge the gap between people trying to recycle used phones and developing countries. He felt he had a strong idea and a strong brand with the tagline “One phone. Change the World,” and that there was enough of an untapped phone recycling market (the current cell phone recycling market only captures about 25% of reusable devices) for the project to succeed.
However, the project didn’t work out as Frost had hoped. He used Facebook ads in order to target a younger, social media-savvy audience. He spent 1,000 dollars to launch an ad campaign and $5000 in a partnership with a phone recycling company. In the end, the non-profit gathered 131 phones valued at a sum total of …$252. And many of those phones were donated through word-of-mouth connections (friends and family) rather than people who saw the Facebook ads.
As we here at MobileActive.org have been covering ICT and mobiles for development now for more than five years, we have seen our fair share of failures. For every great project that changes how a community benefits from technology to improve the lives of its people, there seem to be twice as many projects that fail, and end up wasting time, money, and maybe worst, goodwill.
Too often in our field, we talk up our successes, overhype and overestimate the value of our projects, and sweep the failures under the rug. But, if we don’t talk about what didn’t work (and, perhaps more importantly, why it didn’t work), others will keep repeating the same mistakes.
That is why we invented FailFaire, a gathering that is happening tonight in New York City and that we hope will take place in other cities around the world. FailFaire is a place where it's ok to talk about what didn't work to learn from for the next project using mobiles for social change and development.
We’ve written before about mobile giving during disasters, and the dramatic results such campaigns can have. But mobile giving can be used for non disaster-related fundraising drives as well and This American Life, a show on the US public radio network, is one of the latest organizations to embrace this trend.
Have an opinion about what you’ve read in the news? Why not text the editor? While many news organizations use SMS to send out news alerts, The Namibian has set up “SMS Pages” in which readers send in text messages to the paper that are then published online and in the physical newspaper.
The Namibian, an independent daily newspaper with news stand sales of 27,000 a day (with an estimated 10-person pass-along rate) and a popular website edition, launched the SMS pages in August 2007.
Many lament that mobile phones can isolate us from our immediate surroundings as we walk down the street texting friends and not paying attention. These three different projects are encouraging people to actively engage with what's around them - with and on their mobile phones. TXTual Healing, Amphibious Architecture and Pathways to Housing take regular text messages and turn them into an interactive experience.
Txtual Healing
In 2006, Paul Notzold showed the first presentation of TXTual Healing as his MFA thesis project for Parsons School of Design. The project consisted of speech bubbles projected onto the side of a building; viewers texted in messages to fill the speech bubbles. Since then, the project has been shown around the world, including France, Italy, Romania, the USA, the Netherlands and China.
There are two new projects in India that are taking advantage of the ubiquity of mobile phones and cheap voice calling there in order to get news to rural villagers. Widespread illiteracy makes newspapers and SMS alerts inadequate as news delivery systems, and irregular electricity makes television and radio unreliable. Voice calls are also very inexpensive in India, with per-second billing and a downward price-war among the main operators. Voice calls over mobile phones are an easy way for villagers to stay informed.
In the region of Uttar Pradesh, Gaon Ki Awaaz delivers twice-daily news updates via voice calls to villagers in their native Avhadi language. Launched in December 2009, the project now has 250 subscribers spread throughout 20 villages. Read our case study on the project here.
Further south, a similar project is operating among the members of the Adivassi tribe in India. Like Gaon Ki Awaaz, it allows villagers to share and receive news over their mobile phones in their native language (in this case, Gondi). Launched by Shubhranshu Choudhary of the International Center for Journalists, the project focuses on citizen reports with dozens of citizen journalists reporting throughout the region. Watch the video below to see how the project works. For more on audio services, see also our recent scan of projects and tools, Talk to Me: A Survey of Voice-Based Mobile Tech.
These two projects highlight the promise of the mobile phone for targeted news reporting; mobiles can provide cheap, reliable access to hyper-local news that may be more independent than government-controlled media. As mobiles become more common in rural areas, similar projects can provide a way to keep citizens connected.
Anne-Ryan Heatwole is a writer for MobileActive.org
Calling all failures! On April 14 we're hosting the first FAILfaire featuring a close look at ICT and mobile development projects that have crashed, burned, and simply FAILED.
While we often focus on highlighting successes and gains in this field, it's no secret that many projects just don't work - some aren't scalable, some aren't sustainable, some can't get around bureaucratic hoops, and many fail due to completely unanticipated barriers. FAILfaire is a platform to openly and honestly discuss failures so that we can learn from what hasn't worked in the past in order to make our future projects stronger and better.
This is where YOU come in. Have you been a part of a project that flopped? Maybe the project used the wrong technology for its region. Maybe it didn't engage the intended community. Did not take culture, people, or both into consieration. Or maybe the rollout was too rushed. Whatever the reason, we want to hear from you.
Gaon Ki Awaaz: News Alerts for Rural Villagers data sheet 5756 Views
One call can bring news to hundreds in rural villages in India. Gaon Ki Awaaz, which means “Village Voice” in the Avhadi language, sends out twice-daily news calls to subscribers directly over their mobile phones. Launched in December 2009, the project recently expanded to 250 subscribers spread over 20 villages.
Mobile Phones and Community Development: A Contact Zone Between Media and Citizenship data sheet 2882 Views
Author:
Gerard Goggin, Jacqueline Clark
Publication Date:
Jun 2009
Publication Type:
Journal article
Abstract:
Mobile phones have already been used widely around the world for activism, social and economic development, and new cultural and communicative forms. Despite this widespread use of mobile phones, they remain a relatively un-theorised and un-discussed phenomenon in community and citizen's media. This paper considers how mobile phones have been taken up by citizens to create new forms of expression and power. The specific focus is the use of mobile phones in community development, with examples including the Grameenphone, agriculture and markets, the Filipino diasporic community, HIV/AIDS healthcare, and mobile phones in activism and as media. It is argued that mobile phones form a contact zone between traditional concepts of community and citizen media, on the one hand, and emerging movements in citizenship, democracy, governance, and development, on the other hand.
