Fifteen of the largest mobile phone networks have joined forces to push instant messaging over mobiles.

Alan Reiter's Camera Phone Report is live again - Welcome back Alan! - with an interesting post on the National Press Photographers Association having opened an awards to camera phone photos. Entry Deadline for all divisions was February 10, 2006.

A cell phone is held aloft as protesters angry over caricatures of Muhammad burn Danish and U.S. flags in Amman, Jordan. Digital communication has become a lifeline for protest organizers. (Photo by Ali Jarekji -- Reuters - published on the The Washington Post).

reporter.co.za, a new site that invites members of the public to contribute their own articles and photographs and earn a small fee, highlights the potential and limitations of the citizen-journalism craze. This is according to veteran South African media professional Anton Harber, in his Harbinger column, entitled "Citizen journalism tends to be shallow and middle-class." [via Poynter.org]

Two days ago, I had a fairly lengthy email exchange with Omar Hamoui who had written to ask my opinion about his new venture AdMob. One thing is for sure. I had an opinion. Not necessarily the one that Omar had hoped for, but to his credit, he has some very good [...]

"Chinese cellphone users sent a total of 304.6 billion short messages last year,a 300-fold increase over the figure for 2000,according to the Ministry of Information Industry of China,"China Daily reports."The short message business has been booming in China over the past five years since 2000,when cellphone users sent over one billion pieces of message.The relevant figures obtained during the four years between 2001 and 2004 amounted to 18.9 billion,90 billion,137.1 billion and 217.7 billion,respectively,the ministry noted".

304.6 billion SMS sent in 2005

Here's something new: Endtones or disconnect tones "to enhance the user experience when a wireless connection is completed. "

Endtone disconnect tones are marketed and sold like ring tones. Whereas ring tones signify incoming calls, endtone notify wireless device users that voice and data connections are terminated. Endtone disconnect tones include "hang-up tones" and "drop tones."

Users hear endtone disconnect tones when individuals hang up (hang-up tones) and when connections are accidentally dropped (drop tones). [via mpocket]

(Thank you, Lars!)

Some interesting and credible evidence just arrived to lend some actual data to the ancient armchair theorists debate about whether online media enable the creation of social capital or suck the life out of face to face communities. The Pew Internet and American Life Project just released a report on "The Strength of Internet Ties," (PDF) that "highlights how email supplements, rather than replaces, the communication people have with others in their network." The researchers are well known experts in social network analysis of cybersocializing -- John Horrigan, Jeffrey Boase, Lee Rainey, and Barry Wellman.

Our evidence calls into question fears that social relationships — and community — are fading away in America. Instead of disappearing, people’s communities are transforming: The traditional human orientation to neighborhood- and village-based groups is moving towards communities that are oriented around geographically dispersed social networks. People communicate and maneuver in these networks rather than being bound up in one solidary community. Yet people’s networks continue to have substantial numbers of relatives and neighbors — the traditional bases of community — as well as friends and workmates.

The internet and email play an important role in maintaining these dispersed social networks. Rather than conflicting with people’s community ties, we find that the internet fits seamlessly with in-person and phone encounters. With the help of the internet, people are able to maintain active contact with sizable social networks, even though many of the people in those networks do not live nearby. Moreover, there is media multiplexity: The more that people see each other in person and talk on the phone, the more they use the internet. The connectedness that the internet and other media foster within social networks has real payoffs: People use the internet to seek out others in their networks of contacts when they need help.

Because individuals — rather than households — are separately connected, the internet and the cell phone have transformed communication from house-to-house to person-to-person.

A wonderful 22 minute video from the BBC looking at how user-generated content and mobile phone footage on stories like the London bombings has changed the way broadcasters report the news. The BBC has been looking back at how user generated content has become part of everyday news throughout 2005. Input from news editors from around the world, including Dan Gilmore. [via Cyberjournalist.net]

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RadioShack and Cingular Wireless today announce a nationwide campaign to sign up 1 million new Wireless AMBER Alert subscribers in 2006,

There could come a day when no one will bother to steal your phone — because they won't be able to use it if they did. Todayonline reports. "Five Singapore Polytechnic students have developed software that disables a handset if the user is unable to provide the user name and password . "The phone becomes useless," said project team leader Mr Ali Razreen, 19. "It defeats the purpose of theft."

(Via New Media Musings)

Good interview with smartmobs friend Jean K. Min about OhmyNews:

What happens on OhmyNews is an intensely interactive online conversation. Citizen reporters have to persuade OhmyNews’ front-line copy editors to have their stories accepted in the first place. As much as 30 percent of daily submissions are rejected for various reasons such as poor sentence construction, factual errors, or its lack of news value. After stories are accepted and edited, then placed in a more prominent space, usually within minutes they draw scores of readers’ feedback. When the story is controversial, as in the case of Goh’s, the number of readers’ comments can shoot up to hundreds and even thousands.

The Economist says "the growth in the number of mobile-phone subscribers is nothing short of spectacular.In 1990 there were just over 11m of them worldwide.Today almost 1.5 billion consumers own mobile phones of various shapes and sizes."

Mobile telecommunications

This AsiaMedia article says that "instead of heading home after work,a 30-year-old Guangzhou news editor going by the internet name of "Forest" hurried to the Shangxiajiu pedestrian mall in Liwan district on Tuesday to meet up with a like-minded group. The members came together in July last year through a QQ, or online chat group and few have told their families about their activities. That's because Forest and the eight other members of the team are vigilantes tackling pickpockets in the city's crowded shopping areas."

China:Guangzhou vigilantes a step ahead of police

Bayan and the ILPS; MobileActive and Aspiration Tech; and all those who helped make the meeting possible....There's a unity to maintain and expand contacts, create a mailing list and help one another prepare for a MobileActive Afro-Asia meeting in Manila sometime next y ear....

Last week the MobileActive crew set up a conference call open to anyone looking to get a better understanding of the basics behind sms campaigns and the steps and c osts needed to get one off the ground....

Television ads and text messaging by Iraq's multitude of political parties and candidates have become the latest weapons in the scramble to sway voters before they head to the polls to choose a full-term parliament on Thursday.

As the shock of Australia's worst race riots settled in, police were investigating a new series of disturbing SMS text messages calling on young Arabs to start another round of attacks at Cronulla beach on Sunday.

From the NYTimes story about the recent violence against social protesters in Dongzhou, China:

Mobile telephone technology has made it easier for people in rural China to organize, communicating news to one another by short messages, and increasingly allowing them to stay in touch with members of non-governmental organizations in big cities who are eager to advise them or provide legal help.

In what is a first, text messaging will be used to help save the life of death row inmate - and 7 times Nobel Peace Prize nominee - Stanley "Tookie" Williams, scheduled to be executed on December 13th, 2005.