MobileActive.org wants to hire you! If you are a cracker-jack researcher and writer, we want you for research and stories from around the world about mobiles for social impact.  Some data entry on organizations and projects around the world using mobile phones to make the world a better place are also part of the job. Online and telephone research, interviews, writing reports and blog posts.

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MobileActive.org meets again! Join us for the second MobileActive gathering, this year at Mobilefest, in Sao Paulo, Brazil. MobileActive07 will take place November 24-25, 2007.

We know that you are interested and passionate about what the mobile revolution means for social good. MobileActive.org and Mobilefest have partnered to bring together leading thinkers, practitioners and technologist in the mobile revolution from around the world to explore how mobiles are fundamentally changing the way we organize ourselves, do business, and make the world a better place.

MobileActive07 is an intensive camp of NGO practitioners, technologists, researchers, and activist who use mobile technology in their work to make the world a better place. With highly interactive working sessions and workshops, and tool and strategy speed-geeks, MobileActive is a focused and collaborative learning space for people with interest and experience in mobile tech for humanity.

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The Myanmar military continued to suppress demonstrations in Burma/Myanmar today with harrowing pictures of tear gas, guns, and beatings directed at the monks and many more civilian protesters, estimated at 70,000 people. We wrote earlier about the use of mobile phones in transmitting information. The BBC today has an update on the use of the Internet in getting information out of Burma, as the country is called by democracy supporters and dissidents. The article notes that mobiles were used to get information out of the country, but also as a tool by the military junta to disseminate rumors and false information.

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Grameen Foundation's Village Phone program has long been touted as the poster child for using mobiles in the economic empowerment of poor women. The program gives villagers in Bangladesh-- and now in several other countries -- access to microcredit to buy a mobile phone that can then be rented to other villagers who do not have a mobile of their own.

Much has been written about Village Phones in the media and in research reports, often describing in glowing terms the economic impact and gain in social status that the women in the program have achieved. Yet, most of these studies are fairly old at this point, predating the exponential growth of mobiles around the world.

Now questions are being raised in some mainstream media about whether renting out minutes on mobile phones is economically beneficial to the so-called village phone operators -- at a time when mobiles have become so much more ubiquitous, even in remote rural areas.

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Reposted from humanitarian.info.

Do mobile phones answer all our prayers? I’ve written about the role that mobile telephony can play in humanitarian assistance quite a few times now, without really talking about it directly. The one line I have consistently taken is that cellphone coverage is not reliable or secure enough to be used as the primary means of communication in an insecure environment.

Putting that to one side for a moment, however, it’s clear that mobile telephony really is the key communications technology for the poor - and that means it should be the key communications technology for the humanitarian community.

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Much was made of a poll conducted by Zogby International and Rock the Vote just before the 2004 Presidential election. The poll, taken solely over mobile phones, showed John Kerry with a significant lead over George W. Bush. The predictive failure of this groundbreaking poll may be due to the fact that while only 2.3% of the 18- to 29-year-old poll respondents said they did not plan to vote, U.S. census data shows that the actual turnout by the youngest voting blocks was much lower than the national average of 64%, with participation at a mere 47% among those age 18 to 24.

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Calling all mobile vendors working with nonprofit organizations and NGOs!

List yourself in our new MobileActive directory.

Nonprofit and NGO leaders and practitioners some to us daily looking for reliable vendors experienced in locales around the world. If you work or want to work with nonprofit organizations, campaigns, and activists and you provide mobile services, please list yourself today.

Submissions are subject to verification and approval before publication, so please be thorough and truthful. We require references and will check them.

To list your company or firm, please go here.

Photo courtesy of T-Salon (Creative Commons)

In the West African nation of Mali, back street vendors power the mobile phone market. The major players -- Ikatel, a division of France Telecom, along with the homegrown Malitel -- have official stores, but most of their sales come from the street. In West Africa, subscription service is rare. Instead, mobile phone users purchase plastic-wrapped cards of varying denominations, scratch off a silvery bar much like those found on an instant lottery ticket, and recharge their phones with the code hidden underneath. These cards can be purchased from tin-roofed convenience shacks, egg sandwich vendors, or random men walking down the street, stacks of soccer jerseys slung over their shoulders.

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We are pleased to welcome Bart Lacroix to MobileActive.org. He will be writing an occasional blog on AfricaNews' Voices of Africa project, an experiment in mobile citizen reporting. AfricaNews currently has three citizen reporters covering stories in their using mobile countries, phones to produce video footage, written reports and photographs.

Using GPRS-enabled phones, on-the-ground citizens reporters don’t need an internet connection at all - only mobile coverage - to send video, voice, and text. The Voices of Africa is deploying reporters in Ghana, South Africa, and Kenya to date who are using Nokia E61i phones to send in their stories. These countries have, admittedly, better mobile coverage than others, so are good for this pilot project. Bart will tell us how it's going, what citizens are reporting on, and what they are learning about content and technical production before sacaling up the project.

A bit of background from AfricaNews' press release:

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In Sierra Leone's national election today, 500 election observers at polling stations around the country are reporting on any irregularities via SMS with their mobile phones. Independent monitoring of elections via cell phone is growing aqround the world, spearheaded by a few innovative NGOs.

The story starts in Montenegro, a small country in the former Yugoslavia. On May 21, 2006 the country saw the first instance of volunteer monitors using SMS, also known as text messaging, as their main election reporting tool. A Montenegrin NGO, the Center for Democratic Transition (CDT), with technical assistance from the National Democratic Institute (NDI) in the United States, was the first organization in the world to use text messaging to meet all election day reporting requirements.

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In addition to Twitter and mobile phones as a vehicle for economic development, mainstream press and the avant garde public are fascinated with ringtones for good.  It is the one topic in mobile campaigns for a cause that consistently get press and attention from mainline journalists.  A case in point is the recently featured endangered species ringtones which have the press all, well -- ringing.

This from Peter Glavin's press release from the Center for Biological Diversity:

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Greenpeace Argentina, as part of Greenpeace's global Whales Campaign, in a protest action yesterday delivered cans of fake 'whale' to the Danish Embassy in Buenos Aires.  The action was recorded clandestinely by the activists on mobile video.  According to Greenpeace, the Danish government is part of the pro-whaling meetings held in Japan. The cans were inscibed with "Whales Canned thanks to Danish support."

The story on an environmental organization offering ringtones with the sounds of endangered species -- save the frog with a free ringtone - that we wrote about a while back, was picked up by the Associated Press and made it to some national papers a few days ago. 

Susan Montoya from the AP wrote the story that was featured in media such as US News and World Report:

"Amid the cacophony of cellphone ringtones these days, add these: the clickety-click-click of a rare Central American poison arrow dart frog, the howl of a Mexican gray wolf and the bellows of an Arctic beluga whale. An environmental group is hoping that the more people hear these sounds from threatened animals, the more they'll wonder where they came from — and question the fate of the animals and birds that make them.

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Gerry Jackson reports on Media Helping Media about the radio station SW Radio Africa outsisde of London that is sending sms headlines about news in Zimbabwe to it's subscriber base of about 2,000 mobile users. Jackson writes:

"We generate news headlines on a daily basis anyway - so this is just another way of using what already exists.

It’s nice and cost effective for any additional donor because there is only the one cost, actually sending the texts. In two months we’ve built up an address database of about 2,000 mobile phone numbers. Like many, Zimbabweans truly love their mobile phones and of course what we’re banking on is the virus effect.

We also get up to 100 requests a day to be added to the service so it’s growing rapidly. What becomes interesting is what business model to use?

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Amnesty International announced yesterday that it will accept payments on the UK via mobile phone that will get more money to the charity.  Billed as a "digital wallet", LUUP, the mobile payment vendor that Amnesty uses,  will " make it easier for people to make donations. Says Amnesty: "It will also enable the human rights organisation to receive up to 15 per cent more of the money than via PSMS methods such as regular text."

The UK arm of Amnesty ruled out premium rate text messages for donors as too costly. In Europe and in the US, network operators take a significant percentage of the revenue of premium texting -- up to 50% in some cases, and donations are limited to what are essentially micro contributions.  Using LUUP, however, means that donors can give up to £800 in the UK to Amnesty International, for example.

To encourage donations, LUUP wil add to the money received by donors an additional 20 per cent. Once signed up to a LUUP account, users can also use the service for sending money via SMS to friends via their mobiles and other mobile payment. If the recipient isn't a LUUP member, they'll be sent a text, inviting them to sign up. Users can they keep the money as part of their LUUP account or transfer it to their traditional bank account.

LUUP is currently available only in a few countries in Europe, but mobile payment systems are springing up all over the world, such as India and part of Africa where Safari and other mobile carriers and vendors see huge potential for offering banking services to the currently "unbanked," as the parlance goes.

Meanwhile, In the United States, Planned Parenthood is rolling out a new service with Working Assets, a progressive telecommunications provider.  According to the press release,  Planned Parenthood Wireless will provide 10% of revenues generated directly to PPFA. Planned Parenthood Wireless features competitively priced calling plans, and popular cell phones (I have seen some and they look fine). Working Assets uses the Sprint® network that reaches more than 250 million people in the United States but it limited to this country.

“Planned Parenthood members care passionately about women’s reproductive health and rights,” said Cecile Richards, PPFA president (and the daughter of the late American politician Ann Richards). “Now they have a smart, simple way to support our work and express that passion with every phone call they make, through a wireless service provider that cares.”

Not to be outdone, the other side is already offering similar services.  The Missouri-based Pro Life Communications offers long-distance, local telephone, nationwide cellular, Internet, and soon satellite television services. The company donates about 15% of the monthly bill customers pay to anti-abortion causes.  Another company, Amerivision Communications and it's Affinity 4 brand offers similar services, including pre-paid mobile, credit cards, and DirecTV service.  The company gives 10% of the monthly usage bill back to the pro-life organization of the customer's choice and has contributed more than $75 million to Christian and pro-life groups, according to a recent article.

Charities clearly have discovered telecommunications services as a way to garner financial and political support, and with the mobile market booming it was just a matter of time before our wallets and ears are hit hard.  What will be next?

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And for this cold February day, something lighter:  The nonprofit New York Philharmonic is selling ringtones of its performances on its brandnew site. Ringtones cost around $3 US, and include well-known works by Brahms, Mozart, and Dvorak. Cute.

MobileActive is announcing the second MobileActive Guide, profiling strategies and civil society organizations using mobile phones in their work to make the world a better place. The MobileActive Guide focuses on using mobile phones in issue advocacy. It features case studies from around the world, strategies for using mobile phones in advocacy work, and a how-to section for advocacy organizations considering using mobile phones to advance their causes.

Download the Guide here. (Log in required)

Mobile phones have become a powerful emerging tool for participation in civil society. This five part series looks ways nonprofits have used mobile phones in their campaigns and the effective strategies deployed, and shares lessons learned.

I am part of a research project for the Gates Foundation on the future of global online advocacy, where I have been adding data and commentary on mobile content.  One of the ideas we have floated is a global SMS hub – a commercial aggregator for low cost global SMS campaigns.  

Why is this needed? 

SMS is a critical tool for e-advocacy in the global south.  Given the high rates of mobile phone penetration in large parts of the world compared to Internet access, SMS allows a much wider reach than email.  However, mass SMS campaigns are not feasible option for many NGOs in the global south because of cost – costs that pertain both to the NGO itself and to potential campaign participants who must pay to text. Sending an email message (or a thousand) entails no excess cost for an NGO above the cost of an internet connection (which admittedly, can be formidable in some parts of the world).  However, if an NGO sends an SMS, it must pay per message (the global average cost is .10 US $), making mass texting thousands of messages prohibitively expensive. In addition, SMS  is in some countries still relatively expensive for consumers, making it somewhat unlikely that they would send an SMS message on behalf of an advocacy campaign.  

What would reduce the cost of SMS for social causes and allow for mass sms campaigns to become a reality for NGOs engaging their constituents?

What is needed is a global SMS hub for civil society organizations, and possibly even one with toll-free numbers for SMS that would not charge participants. With a toll-free SMS short code, the sender would not have to pay to send the SMS to a particular number or better yet short code.  This would require short code requisition for many countries and agreements with all telephone operator in the country (or countries) in which the service is to be offered -- short, a global aggregator service with a twist, a Clickatell for Good.

How far off from being a reality is a global SMS hub for civil society?

The GSM Association recently completed trials of a hub-baed interoperability structure.  From it’s press release:

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MobileActive is recognized by Squidoo, GetActive (now Convio) and Netsquared as one of the 59 "Smartest Orgs on the Web." 

The "Smartest Orgs are chosen for their "excellence in online storytelling," for "giving their volunteers and members a voice,"  for being pros at mobilizing awareness online.  For being "experimentors. Innovators. On a mission. And fearless." 

That made me wince - and yes, some out there think these iists are 'cheesy'.  I am still happy that this volunteer community and labor of love is acknowledged in some way.  Thank you to all the MobileActive contributors and community who make this site come alive.  And if you feel like it: To make us rise in the ranks, vote us up here! (click on the arrow to move us up)

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Mobile banking is taking off, with the potential to change entire economies where the majority of people currently are currently "unbanked," as the term goes. There have been been several very interesting reports and articles recently on the topic.  On the Foreign Policy blog, World bank consultant Christine Bowers writes about the enormous  economic implications that mobile banking has for the world's poorest:

"The World Bank estimates that in many countries, over half the population—"the unbanked"—has never had a bank account. The poor tend to be terrified of banks, since they're often humiliated or ignored when they try to enter them. That means they can't leave their savings anywhere safe, pay a bill without walking the cash to the office, or prove that they're credit-worthy. Meanwhile, mobile phone penetration is through the roof, especially in Africa. In 2000, fewer than 8 million Africans had a mobile phone - now over 100 million do. That's one in nine. Now, anyone with access to a cell phone has a place to keep his or her savings without needing a traditional bank account. We won't see millionaires suddenly emerging from the shantytowns just because they're "banked," but even a small nest egg needs a safe resting place.

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Amnesty's campaign to close Guatanamo using SMS has been bothering me ever since I opted in to the mobile action network. Don't get me wrong - the web campaign is great and the pictures and stories on the blog are effective.

But the mobile campaign is all wrong.  Yes, mobile campaigns are a new medium, only beginning to show a return, and not well understood.  This is even true for big commercial campaigns that are only now sticking their toes into the mobile marketing waters.

But come on, advocacy organization, you are smarter than that. Mobile marketing is not rocket science, there is already a lot we know, and even as you experiment, use some common sense and pay attention to what you already know about engaging users and constituents.

So in order:

1. What's happening in the mobile marketing market that advocacy organizations should pay attention to (caution: this is US-centric!)

• Carriers in the US are loosening up their previously tight restrictions on mobile advertising. Verizon, Sprint/Nextel, and AT&T are now allowing banner ads on their landing pages
• More and more Americans have WAP-enabled phones, allowing them to do more and more on their cell phones, including watching video and photos, browsing the web, and of course, ubiquitous text messaging. rich media mobile messaging for greater brand and communication impact. Marketers now have at their disposal MMS (define), WAP push (clickable links to WAP-based multimedia content incorporated into SMS messages), and video shortcodes (consumers receive a video stream directly to their handset in response to texting to a shortcode).
• Altogether more than 74% of US adults have cell phones -- and they do not leave the house without them (and their keys and wallets - the three things most adults walk around with at all times.)
• Sms/texting is growing by leaps and bounds with more than 64.8 billion SMS messages sent in the first six months of 2006, up 98.8% from 32.6 billion in first six months of 2005.
• Mobile marketers are salivating, with polls, contests, coupons, and even mobi-sodes, short sms serial stories hitting the commercial market.  Pepsi, Ford, Toyota, Burger King all have mobile campaigns, and more and more marketers are allocating hard dollars to "mobile marketing" budgets.
• Visa announced its mobile payment platform, allowing cardholders to use their mobile phones to make purchases or conduct other transactions by tapping them against readers. Think 'just in time' fundraising.

But what's the ROI for mobile marketers - such as advocacy organizations?

Everyone agrees, the medium is young, it is risky when poorly done, and it'll take time to judge payoffs.  MobileActive's research of existing campaigns shows some interesting returns with sizeable opt-ins, and rather impressive open and forward rates for campaigns conducted by IFAW and Oxfam, for example.  We will be publishing more details from specific campaigns in the next MobileActive Guide on Mobile Advocacy.

While a lot of metrics are still elusive, Brandweek reports about a commercial campaign:  For the "Everydayrocks" text initiative, some 13,000 people opted in. And more than 75% of the entrants responded to SMS messages from the brand and/or redeemed mobile coupons. Only 4.8% opted out. Most telling, however, was that mobile emerged as the conduit with the best market reach; mobile outperformed radio by more than 64% and billboards by 24%. Overall, the mobile redemption rate was 28%, making it by far the most effective component."

We have seen positive other PR as well - a clever campaign, especially one that goes viral, will get earned media coverage and word-of-mouth exposure

What are advocacy organizations concerned about?

According to Brandweek, there still is considerable "consumer resistance, the main reason behind the carriers' historic refusal to open the gates to ad content."  Brandweek goes on: "Studies have shown that consumers are less than thrilled with the idea of receiving ads on their cells. While early adopter teens are among the biggest targets, three-quarters of cell phone users ages 10 to 18 said they do not think it's OK to be marketed to on a mobile device, according to a study of 2,000 users conducted by Weekly Reader Research, Stamford, Conn., on Brandweek's behalf. Forrester Research in Cambridge, Mass., found 79% of consumers are turned off by the idea of ads on their phones and a mere 3% of respondents said they trust text ads."

There are now strict guidelines, drafted by the Mobile Marketing Association, on opt-in and opt out procedures.  

It's my phone!  Be scrupulous about your opt-in practices, absolutely meticulous in following the mobile marketing code of ethics, and make your vendors follow them to the T.  Your brand is at stake, and people will get very annoyed if they perceive you spamming them.

But this is not stopping mobile marketers who are chomping at the bit.  

So, what do we know about effective mobile marketing?

Can we talk?
1. Mobile messaging should be about interaction, do not just pitch. A hard notion for advocacy organizations used to pushing email messages by the millions.  Mobiles offer a unique opportunity for interaction. Advocacy organizations need to think about mobile marketing as a conversation, a way to interact two-ways with their constituents.
2. Trust is key here as the mobile medium is so very personal.  Gain permission and offer relevant and timely content.
3. Pull people to mobile interaction through other media -- ads, billboards, the web and offer, in turn, mobile interaction with those media.  
4. Be careful about targeting your demographics and make your ask accordingly -- asking an older constituency to upload mobile photos is probably not going to be very successful.
5. Be relevant.  Offer timely news and functional updates that are of interest to your audience-- and be clever. Just by way of an idea: The American Lung Association could offer air quality updates via sms for where I live, for example.  In Amnesty's case, I would like to know how many others are signing the petition and how it's going -- what are others saying and how successful is the campaign? Send me an sms with an update since signing on -- I have not heard a lick from Amnesty since I signed the petition two days ago.
6. Mobile marketing works best when it's pull, not push, and there is an opportunity for people to express themselves - to 'talk' back, to suggest, to respond.  Humor works here!
7. Be multi-media.  Integrate your mobile marketing and messaging into your entire media and messaging campaing; do not let mobile be an add-on - it shows, and it costs you if not done well.

This is a world that is rapidly evolving.  Bandwith and technology improving al the time, we will see Internet- and TV-style ads, search, and much more branded content.  

For advocacy organizations, mobile marketing is used most effectively for facilitating a dialogue with their constituents.  This 'third screen' can create extended conversation, creating connections across online and traditional media exposures.

So what should Amnesty have done better here?

1. Do no ask me for my email to sign the petition, let me do it via sms.
2. Show what people are saying on the petition via sms, in real time on the blog, in ads, in public interest announcements -- in your other media campaign.
3. Tell me back how it is going -- what other people are saying, what is happening.
4. Communicate regularly with me VIA text, BUT remind me of how to opt out.
5. Ask me to forward a note, ask me to make a call, ask me to express myself in a some way in a poll, in a 160 character message, poem or statement.
6. Use humour, allow for humour -- it may be gallows humour in the case of Gitmo, but hey...

Overall: engage me, and do not let me feel that I am sinking in your typical advocacy 'push' hole that benefits you organizationally, but in the end has no impact on the issue, nor engages me in any way.  

In the end, because mobiles are so personal, there is a huge opportunity for a conversation that few advocacy organizations used to messaging OUT have any idea how to do effectively.  Mobiles are very much a read/write medium in the web 2.0 fashion and only those organizations willing to hear back and engage in 'it's the conversation, stupid' will end up running catchy, creative, engaging, and innovative mobile campaigns.

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Following on the heels of the BBC feature on the revolutionary growth and availablity of mobile phones in Kenya, OmyNews features a new project-to-be in South Africa's KwaZulu Natal province.  The UmNyango Project of Fahamu, a MobileActive participant, equips rural women in the Province with free text messaging to report on violence against them and their children, and report other abuses.  The project coordinator, Anil Naidoo, says: ""This is the first time in KwaZulu Natal that we know of, where SMS technology has been used to directly empower women in this way. What makes the project unique is that women will be able to assert their constitutional rights using accessible and sustainable technology." The project will train women how to send and receive messages in their local language.   According to Naidoo, the sms platform "will complement the network of rural legal advice centers that form part of the UmNyango Project. Very importantly though, the SMS platform allows women to anonymously report on gender-based violence without fear of reprisal. We hope that women will be able to assert their constitutional rights through this project."

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In today's New York Times there is a full-page ad for Amnesty's Close Guantanamo campaign -- complete with a short code for a text-in campaign. Text believe to '30644; to opt in to the Amnesty campaign. This is the frst time that a major campaign is using a text component in their work  here in the US. Of course, it's par for the course elsewhere in the world, but organizations have been cuatious here for fear of annoying supporters, and unsure of the ROI of the investment.

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Nokia and Visa announced yesterday a global system to turn mobile phones into wallets for millions of customers.  Reuters reports that "Users can pay for groceries and other purchases by swiping a phone over a reader that electronically communicates with a microchip on the phone. Phone owners confirm the purchase with the push of a button and the deal is complete."

The platform was developed after a number of trials around the world (I heard about some trias in Malaysia last year that were very promising) and enables mobile payments, remote payments, person-to-person payments, and mobile coupons. It also enables mobile fundraising for nonprofit organizations in new ways that have not been possible to date.

Consumers manage their payment accounts and funds from their mobile devices. IBM has also helped to create the mobile payment system.

Visa said in a statement at the Consumer Electonics show that it will use global technology standards which have been selected and developed over the past few years by groups such as the Mobile Payment Forum from the world's major credit card companies, telecoms operators, chip makers and handset vendors.

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