MobileActive.org

Using the Mobile Media Toolkit to Create Great Content

MobileActive.org recently launched the Mobile Media Toolkit, a resource for professional journalists and citizen reporters who want to use mobile phones to create and share news about the world around them. If you want to learn more about using your phone as a media tool, the Mobile Media Toolkit has guides, how-tos, and real-world case studies that can help you learn the best tips, tricks, and tools for mobile reporting.

One of the sections of the Mobile Media Toolkit focuses on creating content – using a mobile phone for photography, audio, and video recording. The section focuses on basic feature phones and smartphones, so the content is applicable to a large number of users.

Creating Audio:

Mobile phones, as an audio medium, are excellent tools for creating audio content. From radio broadcasts, to podcasts, to audio slideshows, anyone can use a mobile phone for audio reporting. In order to use a phone for audio reporting, users can do any of three things:

1. Use the calling function of the phone to leave an audio message on a service that records your call.
2. Record audio directly onto your phone through its microphone.
3. Use software or applications to record phone conversations.

While creating audio, it's important to have a good recording environment, which means minimal background noise and ambient sound (such as from air conditioners or fans in a room, or traffic in outdoor settings). Using an extrenal microphone (rather than the built-in mic on the phone) can help cut down on ambient noise as it picks up sound more directly. For recording phone calls, you should warn your interviewee first, as in many states and countries, it is legally required to tell someone before recording them.

Using mobile phones to record audio is simple and sharable, and should be a skill in the repetoire of any mobile journalist. The Mobile Media Toolkit has much more information on recording on audio, including how to edit audio, how to publish and share it, and case studies on how different organizations around the world are using mobile audio reports.

Creating Video:

Videos are a great way to document the world around you, and the ubiquity of mobile phones with video capabilities means that the opportunity for journalists and citizen reporters to capture great video is always growing.

Creating good videos off a mobile phone can add a dynamic boost to news reports, or present a stand-alone story. When recording video, try to some of the Mobile Media Toolkit's advice for creating videos:

1. Hold the phone in landscape mode (held horizontally rather than vertically) while recording; most online video players are designed for landscape videos, so filming in this format means you'll get the most from the scene.
2. Keep the camera stable; stability is key for smooth video. Use a tripod if you have one, if not, then steady your arms on something solid or film in a sitting or kneeling position.
3. Use an external microphone for better sound quality.
4. Check the lighting. If you're filming outside, keep the sun behind your subject; if filming inside, then make sure your subject is lit from multiple angles to avoid shadows. 
5. Film on the highest resolution you have available – if you are not directly uploading/live-streaming the video from your mobile phone, you can always compress the video later on a computer when editing if you need a smaller file size.

There are several options for editing mobile videos; some phones (like the iPhone and the Nokia N series) have built-in editing packages, and smartphone users with iPhones or Windows phones can download third party editing applications. Users can also upload the videos to a computer for richer editing options.

Taking Photos:

Much of the advice for taking pictures is similar to the advice for taking good videos:

1. Make sure you have lots of light on your subject to compensate for the small phone lens.
2. Keep your phone stable in order to reduce blur.
3. Keep the lens clean. The lens on camera phones can get dirty quickly as it is often less protected then the lens on a traditional camera. Remove dirt and debris so that your pictures aren't marred. 
4. Try not to use the zoom on the camera; photos will be in a higher resolution if you move in to take the picture or later crop the photo in photo editing software.

The Mobile Media Toolkit has links to reviews of the best camera phones, helpful videos on taking good pictures, and advice on the kinds of editing applications and software.

The section also has information for reporting from smartphones, covering everything from how smartphones can be used for live and semi-live reporting, social media applications, personal management (such as taking notes, recording calls, or scheduling interviews), and a summary of applications for a variety of handsets (Symbian, RIM, Android, iPhone, and Windows).

To learn more, check out the Mobile Media Toolkit for more information on creating, editing, and sharing content with your mobile phone.

The Mobile Minute: RIM Layoffs, Smartphone Penetration in Asia, and the Growth of Near Field Communication Payments

The Mobile Minute is back with the latest mobile news. What's happening today? Nielsen Wire looks at smartphone penetration in Asia, RIM lays off 11% of its worldwide workforce, CGAP investigates how network operators can incorporate mobile financial services into their operations, [x]Cube Labs turns Android's history into an infographic, and Read Write Web looks into the latest developments in the use of near field communication technology for mobile payments.

• Curious about the smartphone market in Asia? Nielsen Wire looks at the rapid growth of smartphones in Asia. Although current smartphone penetration in the region is less than 20%, a Nielsen survey of consumers revealed that nearly half of respondents plan to buy a smartphone within the next year. Nielsen Wire investigates what the anticipated increase in smartphone ownership will mean for how people access the Internet, how network operators will price their data plans, and how mobile advertising will adjust to a new market.

• Wired reports that RIM (the makers of BlackBerry devices) announced on July 25th their plans to lay off 2000 employees, roughly 11% of its worldwide workforce. The move comes as RIM has lost market share to the growing popularity of newer operating systems like Apple's iOS and Google's Android.

• CGAP's "How to Run with Mobile Money and Not Fall" article examines how mobile network operators can incorporate mobile financial services into their current business models. Some of the advice for successfully incorporating mobile money services includes using multiple distribution methods (such as both on-phone purchases and traditional street airtime sellers) and getting support from/sharing knowledge among multiple departments.

• If you like charts and graphs, check out this history of the Android operating system. Covering everything from its founding date (2003), to the Google buyout (2005), to the launch of the first Android device (2008), to present day releases, the infographic maps out each update in Android's development.

• Near field communication (NFC) technology allows smartphone users to transmit information to nearby contacts. Read Write Web recently investigated some of the new developments in the NFC field for turning smartphones into credit cards. The first article looks at how the company Isis partnered with four major American credit card companies (Visa, MasterCard, American Express, and Discover) to develop wireless payments. The second article looks at the Jumio payment company's launch of Netswipe, which "turns any webcam into a credit card reader, both on the desktop and on mobile."

[Mobile Minute Disclaimer: The Mobile Minute is a quick round-up of interesting stories that have come across our RSS and Twitter feeds to keep you informed of the rapid pace of innovation. Read them and enjoy them, but know that we have not deeply investigated these news items. For more in-depth information about the ever-growing field of mobile tech for social change, check out our blog posts, white papers and research, how-tos, and case studies.

Image courtesy Flickr user QiFei

Drumroll, please... It's the Mobile Media Toolkit!

Introducing the Mobile Media Toolkit, the newest project from MobileActive.org that is all about Making Media Mobile.

The Mobile Media Toolkit helps you make sense of the growing role of mobile tech in media. The Toolkit provides how-to guides, mobile tools, and case studies on how mobile phones can (and are) being used for reporting, news broadcasting, and citizen media. We cover it all, from basic feature phones to the latest smartphone applications.

It's an exciting day for us here at MobileActive.org as we launch the Mobile Media Toolkit. For the last year we have been interviewing people, researching projects, and testing tools, to bring you this free resource. It is designed to help you evaluate and effectively deploy the right tools for reporting and sharing content on and to mobile devices.

Please visit the Toolkit. Share it with others. Add to it! It's available in English, Spanish, and Arabic.  So, please join us and say Welcome, Bienvenidos, and مرحبا to the Mobile Media Toolkit!

Join the Conversation on Mobiles in Citizen Media

Join New Tactics in Human Rights, MobileActive.org and others for an online dialogue on Using Mobile Phones for Citizen Media. The dialogue is starting tomorrow, and will conclude on August 2nd. 

The conversation takes place here.

With the growing use of mobile phones for citizen media comes new risks, challenges and opportunities. This online dialogue is a space to discuss stories, tactics, and resources for using mobile phones for citizen media, as well as a space to discuss mobile risk assessment and security. Jin the discussion on July 27 to share your stories, ideas and resources!  

You can find more information on how to participate here.

Equal Access: Creating a Community Feedback Loop with Radio and Mobile Phones

We spoke with Prairie Summer and Graham Gardner of Equal Access to learn more about that organization’s work integrating educational radio broadcasts with mobile-based tools such as SMS and IVR. As they explain, this combination has enabled them to better tailor their message to their their audience and has allowed for a unique form of interactive communication.

Equal Access creates communications strategies and outreach that address the most critical challenges affecting people in the developing world. Their work has focused on communications around issues such as women and girls' rights, democracy and governance, and education.  

Equal Access: Creating a Community Feedback Loop with Radio and Mobile Phones by mobileactive

Photo courtesy Equal Access.

Are Your Apps Trustworthy? 6 Questions to Ask

Smartphones (iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Windows Mobile, Symbian) and many feature phones allow you to download and install mobile applications (“apps”). Apps do many useful things. However, some apps (and other types of software, such as your mobile operating system) can also present security risks. These include:

• Apps and other software may have access to information stored on or generated by your phone.

• Apps and other software may have the ability to transmit this information using your phone’s Internet connection.

Malicious apps or other mobile software installed on your mobile device can expose you to the following risks:

• Your conversations may be listened to or recorded without your knowledge.

• Your text messages, emails and web traffic may be monitored and logged.

• Data stored on your phone (contacts, calendar entries, photos and video) may be accessed or copied.

• Passwords stored or entered on your phone may be stolen and used to access your online accounts.

• Your locationmaybetracked, even when your phone is switched off.

With smartphones gaining market share, malicious apps are beginning to pose a serious threat. In an article titled “Your Apps Are Watching You”, the Wall Street Journal tested popular iPhone and Android apps, and found that of 101 apps tested, 56 transmitted a unique identifier for the phone without informing the user or asking for consent. 47 apps also transmitted the phone’s location, while 5 sent age, gender or other personal details to various companies. The App Genome Project reports that 28% of all apps in the Android Market and 34% of all free apps in the Apple App Store have the capability to access location, while 7.5% of Android Market apps and 11% of Apple App Store apps have the capability to access users’ contacts.

It can be very difficult to tell which apps are safe and which are not. App behaviours that might not bother most users, such as transmitting the phone’s location to an advertising server, can be unacceptable to people with higher privacy and security requirements.

This article offers suggestions on how to assess risks to security and privacy posed by apps.

The Role of Technology and Citizen Media in Promoting Transparency, Accountability and Civic Participation

Four Billion Little Brothers? Privacy, Mobile Phones, and Ubiquitous Data Collection.

SaferMobile LockDown Guides

Despite the smartphone craze of the past 5 years, featurephones are still king in much of the world. From the perspective of activists, rights defenders, and journalists, they cannot be ignored. And feature phones have plenty of built-in capability to help users stay safer. During the course of our research, we've uncovered valuable features that even the most experienced users may not be aware of.

As a part of SaferMobile, a project of MobileActive.org, we've focused on documenting the most important ways that a user can lock down a mobile handsets. No external apps or special tools are required, just a charged battery. We've condensed these tips into single-page, device-specific reference guides for a variety of makes & models that get straight to the point. And yes, we made sure to cover smartphones and featurephones.

Mobile Application Security

Designing with Mobile Digital Storytelling in Rural Africa

SMS Uprising:Mobile Phone Activism in Africa

Safer Twitter

A Guide to Mobile Security Risk Assessment

The Bug in Your Pocket: Remote Listening Applications for Mobile Phones

We've heard much recently about information that is being tracked by mobile phone companies (see our recent post) and app developers. However, there are more overt security threats that are potentially more dangerous.

One of these threats is referred to as either a “roving bug” or a “remote listening” application. It is essentially the same concept as a conventional audio bug, except that it requires no hardware other than a smartphone. Once installed, remote listening software enables a 3rd party to call a phone, activate its speakerphone capabilities, and secretly transmit any sounds picked by its microphone to another phone number, where it can be monitored and recorded.

Reports from the Frontline: How Small World News Trains Citizen Journalists and Captures Footage from Libya

In Tanzania Media, Speak Up and Be Heard



SMSTester for Android: Project and Source Now Open

One of the main goals of the SaferMobile project is to release software tools that allow activists and rights defenders to use their mobile phones as network monitors and sensors. The goal is to help them, and the mobile developers, human rights organizations and people on the street they work with, to monitor network performance and proactively detect blocking, filtering and censorship. SMSTester is the first tool we are publicly releasing within this category, and it is free, freely licensed and open-source. Our first trial run with Short Message Service Tester (SMSTester) was completed in April 2011. The results are written up here.

Mobile Tactics for Participants in Peaceful Assemblies

Introducing SaferMobile: Mobile Security for Rights Defenders, Activists, and Journalists

Activists, rights defenders, and journalists use mobile devices for reporting, organizing, mobilizing, and documenting. We have written about many of these uses for years now, describing how mobile phones provide countless benefits to activists and rights defenders. Mobile tech is relatively low cost and allows for increased efficiencies and vast reach, for example. But, there is a darker side.

Mobile Phones present specific risks to rights defenders, journalists, and activists. We believe that is is critically important to know that mobile communication is inherently insecure and exposes rights defenders and those working in sensitive environment to risks that are not easy to detect or overcome. (We provide an overview of those risks in this Primer, for instance)

To address mobile safety and security for rights defenders, we are introducing SaferMobile, to help activists, human rights defenders, and journalists assess the mobile communications risks that they are facing, and then use appropriate mitigation techniques to increase their ability to organize, report, and work more safely.

What is SaferMobile? 

• Online and offline educational and tactical resources (risk evaluation tools, case studies, how-to guides, security tool reviews); 
• Trainings and curricula for use in various countries and with different constituencies; 
• Specific mobile security software focused on the needs of rights defenders, activists, and journalists.

As will all that we do, we believe that there certain values and principles that are paramount in this work. For SaferMobile, we are following these principles:

• We believe that skilled, trained, and knowledgeable activists, journalists, and rights defenders are key to democratic changes. We also believe that the smart and effective use of technology constitutes an integral piece of their skill set.
• The better activists, journalists, and rights defender are able to work, the more safely they are able to organize and communicate, the more likely it is that their work is effective and heard. 
• We are committed to accessible, useful, actionable, and technically accurate and secure content, materials, and software. 
• We are also committed to describing technological vulnerabilities in terms that non-technical users can easily understand. 
• We work with activists on the ground to ensure that the content we produce addresses real uses and risks. 
• We also seek responsive connections between activists and security professionals so that both are more able to assess and respond to changing risks.  
• Lastly, we are maintaining information that reflects current security risks and technological vulnerabilities and is vetted for security and technological accuracy by knowledgeable experts.

Roadmap and Process

The SaferMobile project is just beginning its second Phase. Phase 1 included needs assessment with users and peers – activists, rights defenders, journalists, technologists, security experts, and mobile developers. Through this research, we outlined plans for web content, training curriculum and tools (software) and are now creating these pieces in Phase 2 of the project (May-August 2011). 

Our approach is iterative and open – we work as a team to develop ideas and welcome review and comments from peers. We maintain a wiki for this initial phase that will act as a living lab for content and code as we develop both. 

Mobile Security Risks: A Primer for Activists, Journalists and Rights Defenders

Who Cares Where I Am, Anyway? An Update on Mobile Phone Location Tracking

Apple’s release of version 4.3.3 of its iOS operating system “..kills iPhone tracking”, according to a recent article. After nearly three weeks of public attention on this issue, this news will perhaps appease some iPhone fans but is not likely to end the debate over what users should know and control about their smartphones’ location tracking abilities. Like Apple, Google’s Android and Microsoft’s Windows Phone systems have also recently come under fire, though important differences exist in the way each company collects and uses location-based information.

We have reviewed recent articles and research on each of these mobile operating systems’ location tracking capabilities and will describe the various claims made and the research undertaken to test these claims.

The Mobile Minute: African Mobile Subscriptions, Twitter's Growth, and Explaining Near-Field Communication

Today's Mobile Minute brings you coverage on African technology use, an interview with txteagle's Nathen Eagle, the 155 millions tweets that are posted on Twitter each day, a look at why technology isn't a panacea, and the future of near-field communication applications for smartphones.

• Like charts and infographics? Check out Afrographique, which has posts on everything from African mobile subscriptions, to a breakdown of South African users of Mxit, Facebook, and Twitter, to a look at African Facebook users by gender.

The Mobile Minute: Facebook Targets Feature Phones, Mobile Donations to Japan, and Smartphone Security

Today's Mobile Minute brings you coverage on smartphone security and malware, the struggle for mobile money systems in Africa to reach the level of M-PESA in Kenya, Facebook's move toward feature phones, the success of messaging-specific feature phones, and a guide to mobile donations for Japan.

• After more than 50 Android apps were discovered to be carrying malware in early March, the BBC took a look at mobile security. From the risks involved in keeping a lot of personal data on mobiles to ways in which malware can be used to manipulate phones, the article explores the need for mobile security around smartphone applications.

• In Africa, mobile banking has certainly garnered a lot of publicity and press. But All Africa looks at some of the drawbacks of mobile banking in specific countries where mobile banking systems are active; specifically, the article focuses on the "walled garden" system which makes it expensive to transfer funds between different mobile operators (sometimes with fees from five to 20 percent higher than a transfer between two users on the same mobile operator).

• Facebook recently bought Snaptu, a company that develops applications for feature phones. Snaptu developed Facebook's first feature phone app, and Facebook has now reportedly acquired the company for close to $70 million dollars. The purchase could indicate that Facebook plans to focus on reaching non-smartphone users around the world.

• Cellular-News reports that by 2015, messaging-specific feature phones will grow to encompass 1/3 of all shipped feature phones. Feature phones make up 75% of the handset market, and feature phones that are optimized for messaging services (such as "SMS, MMS, mobile email, and mobile IM") are expected to increase in popularity.

• Want to send a mobile donation to a specific cause for tsunami relief in Japan? Into Mobile has a roundup of shortcodes and the organizations that use them so that you can easily find the best way to donate.

[Mobile Minute Disclaimer: The Mobile Minute is a quick round-up of interesting stories that have come across our RSS and Twitter feeds to keep you informed of the rapid pace of innovation. Read them and enjoy them, but know that we have not deeply investigated these news items. For more in-depth information about the ever-growing field of mobile tech for social change, check out our blog posts, white papers and research, how-tos, and case studies.]

Image courtesy Flickr user QiFei

New: Case Study from Benghazi, Libya. Citizen Journalists Are on The Story

Our latest case study features Small World News, reporting live from Benghazi with citizen media efforts in Libya. About a dozen young Libyan citizen journalists are capturing and sharing video content of life on the ground in Benghazi, right now. And they are scooping many major media outlets in the process -- check out their footage captured yesterday from the eastern gate of Ajdabiyah, a city east of Benghazi where heavy artillery is moving in.