A global network of people using mobile technology for social impact.
The Mobile Minute is here to bring you news about YouTube's new mobile site, 4G wireless networks in Russia, mobile phone ownership growth in North Korea, apps and the future of news journalism, and the New York Times' look at the growth of the web.
Jasmine News sends between 60 and 90 SMS news updates per month to subscribers on general topics such as politics, law, current events, business, sports, and entertainment. The goal is to provide accurate and speedy news information, for a low fee, to all mobile users in Sri Lanka.
In 2006, Jasmine News began sending SMS news headlines to subscribers in Sri Lanka, the first to do so in the country. Today, the service sends 60 to 90 messages a month to 170,000 subscribers, who pay Rs.30 per month ($0.30) for the service.
Jasmine News provides brief news headlines sent via SMS on general topics including politics, law, current events, business, sports, and entertainment. The organization also has a website, though content is mostly of SMS length. SMS messages are available in multiple languages, including Sinhala, Tamil and Singlish (Sinhala in transliterated English).
To become a subscriber, a mobile user types a code such as "reg JNW" and send its to an established shortcode (2233) to subscribe for the push service. A local number is required.
The target audience is mobile users in Sri Lanka. To receive SMS news updates, a mobile user must subscribe for Rs.30 per month ($0.30). Subscribers must also have a local number, though Jasmine News partners with 6 mobile providers to ensure that news can be delivered to subscribers on any network in the country.
At 170,000, Jasmine News has a notable number of paid subscribers. According to one of the founders, SMS news headlines fill two important needs: inclusion and empowerment through information. And it does so at a price that many people can afford: Rs30 per month.
First, the environment was ideal. With 15 million mobile phone subscribers in Sri Lanka, there was a clear need for an affordable and convenient method to receive news via phone, Ariyadasa said.
Another success for Jasmine News comes from a good working relationship with many telecom operators in Sri Lanka. This ensures that news can be delivered to subscribers on any network in the country.
A rather obvious problem for paid subscription-based models is that text messages are easy to forward. But, a founder of Jasmine News said that is not a large issue because while people do forward content, it costs more to forward (at $0.05 per SMS) than to actually subscribe at $0.30 per month for 60 to 90 messages.
The Mobile Minute is here to keep you up-to-date on mobile and ICT news. Today's Mobile Minute covers National Public Radio's (NPR) metrics in America, why FM radio could be coming to your mobile handset, the decline of landline phones in the US, a program that delivers email over SMS in the Philippines, and why advertisers should use mobile marketing in developing countries.
Bubble Motion, a provider of mobile messaging and social media applications, launched Bubbly this year in India, making strides in the mobile audio blogging world. Audio blogging is a form of blogging in which the medium is audio content. Bubbly works by call and record, and thus can be adapted in areas with high mobile penetration and low Internet access, such as India.
A Bubbly user calls the service and through an integrated voice response (IVR) menu can record a name and message, usually less than 30 seconds. When other users choose to follow a user’s posts (or “Bubbles”) they receive an SMS message every time new audio content is added. A video by Pi Social Media on YouTube demonstrates how to record and listen to a Bubble; this one about an office party meet-up.
MobileActive.org spoke with Bubbly and the BBC, a user of the service, to find out how it works.
Bubbly is a mobile-based service that allows users to record voice content and follow the voice content of others.
Bubble Motion, a provider of mobile messaging and social media applications, launched Bubbly this year in India, making strides in the mobile audio blogging world. Audio blogging is a form of blogging in which the medium or main content is audio. Bubbly works by call and record, and thus can be adapted in areas with high mobile penetration and low Internet access, such as India.
A Bubbly user calls the service and through an integrated voice response (IVR) menu can record a name and message, usually less than 30 seconds. When other users choose to follow a user’s posts (or “Bubbles”) they will receive an SMS message every time new audio content is added.
Because it works in close partnership with mobile operator providers, Bubbly users must be on a network that offers the service. Bubbly is currently deployed in India. The Bubble Motion group plans to expand next to Indonesia, the Philippines, and Japan.
The Bubbly service works closely with mobile operators, so it is able to leverage the billing systems of providers to have a built-in business model and collection system. It also allows people in regions with high mobile phone penetration and low Inernet access to participate in social communication via mobile phones.
Use is restricted to subscribers of specific mobile networks. Users also incur either subscription fees or the airtime costs required to record or listen to an audio message. Another challenge is the discoverability of the service, requirig extensive maketing investments.
Today's Mobile Minute brings you coverage on how mobiles are helping farmers in India, jquery on mobile, a comparison of patterns between mobile and desktop Twitter usage, and a mobile-only magazine.
Mobile phones have become a critical mobile news reporting tool. They can be a very effective way to produce content and transmit that content back to the studio very cheaply. The presentation presents real world examples of how mobile phones have been used in reporting contexts to great effect, tools that can help reporters do this reporting, and things to keep in mind (such as battery levels). The presentation also includes the author's recommendations for the best apps for mobile journalism.
Today's Mobile Minute features links on fundraising with QR codes, a survey report on how audiences get information, a breakdown of how journalism is changing due to mobile phones, the announcement of a clearer definition of mobile broadband, an open-source, solar-powered mobile network, and five cross-platform mobile development tools.
Two years ago, Bev Clark, the co-founder of Kubatana.net, was awarded a large grant as part of the Knight News Challenge for Freedom Fone, an open-source software platform for distributing news and information through interactive voice response (IVR) technology. Freedom Fone was officially launched in late February of this year and has since been downloaded about 200 times, said Amy Saunderson-Meyer of Freedom Fone.
Freedom Fone leverages audio as a mobile function using IVR, a technology that allows a system to detect voice and keyboard input. IVR allows a user to call, enter or say specific numbers, and listen to or contribute audio content. (Many readers are already familiar with IVR - you’ve likely encountered it when you call a customer service number and are prompted with instructions to press numbers for different issues or service departments.)
Since the launch, Freedom Fone has provided support to specific organizations including Equal Access in Cambodia, Small World News TV, TechnoServe, One Economy Corporation, and Africa Youth Trust.
Recently, Freedom Fone was adapted by two farm radio stations through the African Radio Research Initiative, a 42-month project supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and implemented by Farm Radio International in partnership with the World University Services of Canada. The aim of the AFRRI project was to asses the effectiveness and impact of farm radio in many parts of Africa.
Freedom Fone leverages audio as a mobile function using IVR (interactive voice response), a technology that allows a system to detect voice and keyboard input. IVR allows a user to call, enter or say specific numbers, and listen to or contribute audio content.
Bartholomew Sullivan, a regional ICT officer for AFRRI, was on site to set up Freedom Fone at Radio Maria in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. It was the first time Freedom Fone partnered with a group outside of its own projects.
AFRRI works with 25 radio stations in five countries in Africa. Stations include private, public, national, and community radio stations with established listeners in varied agricultural zones. Freedom Fone was introduced at two of these radio stations: Radio Maria (a faith-based station that also broadcasts health and agricultural information across the country) in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Volta Star radio (the national broadcaster) in the Volta region of Ghana. Before the project, neither station had an existing IVR system in place and the primary feedback loop with listeners was through written letters.
Any individual or group interested in integrated voice response, especially in how it can be used at a radio station.
One benefit to Freedom Fone integration at an established radio station is the ability to promote the IVR service. At Radio Maria, the broadcasters relied on the large number of existing listeners to promote and explain the service including the specific local numbers to call. The group created a special jingle and message to promote the competition.
Another thing that worked well was the ability to set up multiple call-in numbers for each of the main local mobile providers in the region: Vodacom, Zain, and Tigo. This allowed listeners to call from their respective networks, making it cheaper. The group used similar sounding numbers for each of the networks.
The participatory radio campaign approach was to enhance existing systems, not add new content or processes to the farm radio stations. So, Sullivan and others were able to incorporate and adapt Freedom Fone to best match the needs and uses of the listeners.
A more general success for Freedom Fone is the ability to provide an alternative, mobile-based medium for news and information.
The projects at Radio Maria and Volta Star (and specifically in regards to Freedom Fone) were not without challenges and issues, including reliable hardware, cost, human error, power, and training.
One challenge is obtaining high-quality or dedicated hardware. In Tanzania, Sullivan bought a second-hand computer locally to host the Freedom Fone software. Cost can be an issue with some hardware as well.
Human error is a challenge inherent with Freedom Fone, which ironically stems from the high adaptability of the platform and the ability for control many parameters of the IVR process.
Power is an issue, especially in areas with unreliable power because, “when the computer is off, then Freedom Fone is down,” Sullivan said. Similarly, infrastructure is really important, including having backup power supplies for power outages.
Another issue to incorporating Freedom Fone at established organizations is training.
Finally, another challenge with Freedom Fone was the ability to deal with user error or confusion.
We've got news on Saudi Arabia's and the United Arab Emirates' moves to ban BlackBerry, the release of the TakingITMobile mobile youth activism survey, a review of livestreaming services for mobiles, USAID's mobile financial services risk matrix, and a report that reveals the niche uses for location-based mobile services.
Today's Mobile Minute brings you coverage on why the the idea of a "cyber-utopia" is flawed, a demonstration of a hacked phone tower, a report on Alabama's increasingly mobile-based news consumption, licensing iPad and iPhone apps from the New York Times, and mBillionth's mobile awards.
Today's Mobile Minute brings you an interview with Indrani Medhi on her work with text-free interface technology, an SMS case study from Toronto's The Globe and Mail, a look at race and digital technology, Nokia's falling profits, and which mobile domains are most popular.
The Mobile Minute is here to bring you the day's mobile-for-development new. Today's Minute covers disaster assistance applications on smartphones, a BBC guide to using pocket-sized video cameras for reporting, the UN ICT Hub's first Briefing Report on ICT4D in the Asia-Pacific region, the development of two new systems that allow mobile phones to work in areas with no reception, an intriguing idea for an iPhone app to combat homelessness, and an event on mobile payments in the Tech@State series in Washington DC.
There are now over 5 billion mobile subscriptions around the world. Smartphone ownership is steadily growing, both in the United States and abroad. Smartphone ownership is projected to be above 50% of all mobile phones in the United States by next year. This has many NGOs and other content and media prodicers wondering about how best to produce content for mobile phones (high-end devices, in particular). SMS and voice-based applications have their use cases, but many content producers today are wondering whether to produce a mobile website or a mobile application (app) to distribute their content.
[Updated with images] In Grahamstown, South Africa, getting and sharing news is a mobile experience. Grocott’s Mail, a local paper, incorporates mobile phones into many aspects of its news service – from disseminating headlines via SMS, to encouraging readers to text in their opinions, to a Knight Challenge-winning citizen journalist training program.
Writing for a new media review is like writing history as events unfold. In a short time, this article will be out of date and perhaps no more than a few personal 2.0 snapshots taken of a slice of our lives circa 2009. Nevertheless, it is useful to draw a clear picture of how this medium is being used today, to define some of its emerging social properties, and to document and pay closer attention to its influence on our daily experiences and self-mediations. By self-mediations I refer to how each one of us decides his or her digital imprint: what we post online, whether they are videos, photographs, CVs, and the like. Due to the enormous quantity of content produced by users – now usually called prosumers – we should pay close attention to these
doings.
My focus will be on how camera phones affect how news is created and shared, reminding us of how closely the concept of ‘newsworthiness’ is linked to immediacy. Then I will briefly compare the camera phone video experience to the cinematic experience and discuss how film narrative and conventions have affected camera use for better or for worse. Finally, I will pose some open questions that touch on the academic and social value of the camera phone images, and on how contextualising them remains a crucial ingredient in all analysis. I will conclude by considering the visual impact that this handheld object is having on our lives and relationships.
This study explores how news journalists' working conditions are changing in an African developing country due to the growth in information communication technologies (ICTs). The special focus is set on news journalists' use of mobile technology because the rate of mobile penetration in to Africa is so significant these years that the region is actually driving the mobile market’s growth worldwide with a teledensity of over 50%. Although mobile technology has been in the Africa continent for almost two decades it is only within the last two to five years that people have made regular use of these technologies due to recent improvements in accessibility and cost-efficiency.
Interviews with several Kenyan news journalists and other media actors conducted in January and February 2010 were used as the prime empirical data in the study. Thus, to the extent that mobile technology has an effect on the journalistic working process, the following problem statement and research questions served as a guide for this study and were answered in the analysis that drew upon the theoretical framework of journalistic working processes, gatekeeping theory, disruptive technologies, and ICT for development (ICT4D):
• PS: How do Kenyan news journalists use mobile phones in their work?
• RQ1: In which ways does mobile technology affect the journalistic working process?
• RQ2: How does mobile technology affect public interaction with the news media?
The findings suggest that Kenyan news journalists use mobile technology in several ways in their work: they set up interview appointments by calling their sources; they conduct telephone interviews; they record interviews using the mobile phone’s microphone which is particularly useful in conflict-sensitive reporting; they send Internet links to their sources whom can read the online news from their mobile phone’s browser. The consequences of journalists’ use of mobile phones are, for instance, that in the past two to five years mobile technology has linked journalists with sources from Kenya's remote areas and enabled the news media to publish reliable stories which would have been difficult to verify a few years ago. Also, the Kenyan public has gained easy access to the news media, for example by participating in radio call-in shows and the information they provide is sometimes researched by journalists and turned into news stories. The traditional gatekeeper role of the press has changed to fact controller, and it is likely that the public's knowledge contribution can help to promote democracy in the country.
We are very interested in the role of mobile phones in citizen media, including how mobile phones can function as a portable newsroom or radio studio. To that end, our latest how-to guide, Mobile Audio Recording in the Field (and how to get a clear sound on the streets), walks you through the process of recording audio content on your mobile phone, whether you are recording from a studio, your home, or in the field.
This how-to is part of the Mobile Media Toolkit, which includes many other case studies, how-to guides, resources, and tools to use mobile phones for reporting, content delivery, and citizen participation.
The how-to provides:
This How-To article provides tips for recording and sharing clear-sounding audio from a mobile phone. Often, recording on a handset is done in less-than-ideal environments. This article offers recording tips to help you capture quality audio to ensure a clear sound, even when you report on the ground and outside of a professional recording studio. We'll describe the best way to create, share and edit audio content depending on what resources you have (or do not have). You will also find a brief outline of some of the most popular and easy-to-use tools for creating, editing, and sharing audio content.
Your mobile phone is an instant audio-recording and storage device, and it can be used anywhere. This How-To article provides tips for recording and sharing clear-sounding audio from a mobile phone. Often, recording on a handset is done in less-than-ideal environments. This article offers recording tips to help you capture quality audio to ensure a clear sound, even when you report on the ground and outside of a professional recording studio. We'll describe the best way to create, share and edit audio content depending on what resources you have (or do not have). You will also find a brief outline of some of the most popular and easy-to-use tools for creating, editing, and sharing audio content. Some tools require a specific call-in number and thus are geographically limited in scope. Other tools are Internet-based and widely available while others are specific to smartphones or iPhones. This article will give you a solid overview of what is available depending on your locale and resources, and will offer guidance for further tips and techniques.
A recently launched campaign at a popular youth radio program in Nepal focuses on the voices of youth - or at least, text messages of youth. Regardless, the SMS campaign seems to be making strides.
UNICEF in Nepal has teamed up with the popular Nepali radio program Saathi Sanga Man Ka Kura, which means "chatting with my best friend." The program, also called SSMK, is run by the non-governmental organization Equal Access Nepal. SSMK has been on the air for 10 years and reaches millions of youth listeners (primarily ages 13 to 26) throughout Nepal. In April, UNICEF and SSMK launched a campaign that allows young listeners to take an active role in a conversation, all via SMS.
Rupa Joshi, a communications specialist with UNICEF, explains the origins of the campaign.
The goal of the project is to maximise participation of young people and reflect their voices on issues that affect their lives.
UNICEF in Nepal has teamed up with the popular Nepali radio program, Saathi Sanga Man Ka Kura, which means "chatting with my best friend." The program, also called SSMK, is run by the non-governmental organization Equal Access Nepal. SSMK has been on the air for 10 years and reaches millions of youth listeners (primarily ages 13 to 26) throughout Nepal. In April, Unicef and SSMK launched a campaign that allows young listeners to take an active role in a conversation, all via SMS.
Every week on the program, the radio team frames a topic or a question and invites the listeners to respond via a free text message to an established short code, 4400. The responses are then posted on a forum on the UNICEF Voices of Youth website.
The target audience of the project are the current listeners of the SSMK radio program. It has been on the air for 10 years and reaches millions of youth listeners, primarily ages 13 to 26, throughout Nepal.
The project worked in conjunction with the ongoing success and popularity of the SSMK radio program. It adapted a technology that was highly accessible (and free) to the target audience. Start up and maintenance costs have been relatively low. The project has also benefited from a positive working relationship with a local mobile technology sevice provider to trouble-shoot technical issues that have come up.
The group has had to perform ongoing fixes to various processes. In its current state, it also requires significant administrative time to monitor and post incoming responses.
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,
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.
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.
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