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Filipinos Crash Site for Popular Ringtone A Website offering a wireless phone ringtone featuring the phrase, "Hello Garci" briefly crashed last week as thousands tried to download it. Consumer group TXT power said its site had been overwhelmed by a demand for the clip taken from the allegations that Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo attempted to fix the results of last year’s election. The opposition contends that the recording offers support to these claims. (Source: Reuters)

I came across this article from Business Wire, "Mobile Marketers Get Warmed Up: Latin America's Wireless Content Market Set to Samba - Region's Rapid Subscriber Growth, New Network & Handset Technologies and Cross Network Connectivity Make Mobile Services Market Ripe for Brands Seeking Direct Connection to Young Latin American Consumers"  The article is available here.  So, how active are youth in Latin America with mobile phones?  How do you facilitate their activity in politics?  If they're buying ringtones, how does politics and social issues reach the masses?

An article on The Feature suggests that the increasing ubiquity and popularity of mass SMS-enabled but temporary political affiliation may actually end up bringing its demise.

Mobile-enabled politics are still far from true networked solidarity -- and may do unaffiliated activists more harm than good.

He says that rather than being used as a grass roots tool, SMS alerts are actually used as top down calls to action.

The Archives of the feature have now been put online. Here is the article referred to above: SMS Activism: Don't Call Us, We'll Call You
By Douglas Rushkoff, Wed Jun 08 08:15:00 GMT 2005

Mobile-enabled politics are still far from true networked solidarity -- and may do unaffiliated activists more harm than good.

Although invented in the thrall of the great Enlightenment and its celebration of individual human autonomy, modern democracy has never truly been about the rights and thoughts of the individual. It's about the mass. Candidates don't accumulate votes one by one, but bloc by bloc. They speak to potential supports as the members of affiliations or tribes: autoworkers, Zionist Jews, soccer moms or NASCAR dads. The trick is to say or do something that flips a whole constituency over into one's column.

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Cell phones need to be cheaper so that more people in developing countries can plug in. Lower cost communication options can help in so many aspects of poor people’s lives, from facilitating the finding of more accurate information on market prices to organizing to speak out against a government that often neglects them.

Bringing cell phones to the masses around the world is also a huge market place for producers to tap. But right now the price of handsets is still prohibitive for may poor people. Cellular-News recently published the article, $25 cellular handset achievable within two years (http://www.cellular-news.com/story/13029.php), looking at industry expectations for lower prices over the next several years.

“Among respondents to the survey, 80% reported a belief that a low-end GSM handset with a total bill-of-materials cost of US$25 can be achieved within two years or less, while 51% believe this level can be reached within one year or less. In addition to electronic and mechanical components, the cost of the handset as presented in the survey was defined to include battery, testing, final assembly, software and IP licensing, and product packaging.”

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Donga.com, the Korean news site on technology and the internet, has this little tidbit of an article:

21st Century's Democracy Comes From Citizens

The democratic movement in the Middle East, the democratic revolution in Central Asia, and China;s anti-Japanese protests. These events are weighty incidents that have shaken the world this year. Behind all these incidents are mobile phones and the Internet. In other words,mobile power; and Internet power; made people power.

If the print media led a modern revolution and TV pulled down the Berlin Wall, the thumb revolution,represented by text messages from mobile phones and the Internet, is currently destroying the wall of a controlled society after emerging as a new kind of political power.

Experiencing the recent candlelight protest around Gwanghwamun organized by high school freshmen, the rally against the impeachment of President Roh, and the group of extremely supporters of President Roh in the 2002 presidential election, Korea is already a developed country in terms of mobile phone demonstrations.

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From an article on the Guerilla News Network about last year's mobilization using sms around the Republican National Convention in New York City:
(http://gnn.tv/articles/122/The_New_York_Model)

Indymedia and the text message jihad.

NEW YORK: The guerrilla musicians from the Infernal Noise Brigade were tuning their instruments, preparing to lead an unannounced, unpermitted march from Union Square to Madison Square Garden. Independent journalists from the Indymedia Center were putting fresh cassettes in their video cameras. An activist was instructing people to line up two-by-two in a straight line because “that way the police don’t have a legal right to stop us when we march.” The cops were mulling about waiting for whatever would come.

Then, Union Square started beeping with a symphony of cell phone text message alerts. It was like the activist version of that scene in the awful Tom Clancy movie “The Sum of All Fears” when the mobile phones of all of the CIA and White House honchos start ringing during a presidential dinner party. “From comms-dispatch,” read the message. “Reports of police using orange mesh fencing to surround protesters at Herald Square. Riot cops moving in. Cameras, medics and legal observers needed.”

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Netpolitique : In your research paper, you insisted on the importance the new media suddenly took between the two rounds of the election. What happened exactly?

Endre Danyi : ABefore the first round of the Hungarian elections (April 7, 2002) political jokes were spread in SMS format on mobile phones, a couple of parties mobilized supporters to a few demonstrations in SMS messages, and some political messages and poems were circulating. However, it was the close result of the first election round that led to the very visible use of personal electronic communication as political campaign weapons.

In the first election round the two biggest parties received almost the same amount of vote. The opposition Hungarian Socialist Party and their allies the liberals got 51%, and the governing right wing party (Fidesz - Alliance of Young Democrats) received 49% of the vote. In this situation the governing party changed strategy and started an extremely intense negative campaign.

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High-Profile Help for Africa

By Sebastian Mallaby Monday, May 23, 2005; Page A19

Monday, May 23, 2005; Page A19

On the question of Africa right now, the Bush administration is up against Nelson Mandela, Tony Blair and the rock star-industrial complex, not to mention Sun Microsystems and Pat Robertson. It's one of those occasions when the sole pole in our (supposedly) unipolar world looks pretty much surrounded.

The sainted Mandela, who packs more moral authority than any man alive, visited President Bush last Tuesday to urge further efforts to help Africa. Blair's foreign minister was in town at the same time, reinforcing the same message. Mandela urged Bush to launch a new Africa initiative, perhaps around the time of the United Nations summit in September. For the Brits, the forcing event is July's Group of Eight summit, which Blair will host in Scotland.

Read More >> SmartMobs: Promotes the Conference May 25, 2005 | Marty file under: coverage Shibuya Epiphany Posted by Emily at 12:40 PM NGOs Green Media Toolshed and aspirationtech.org are hosting the first-ever gathering of activists and organizers using cell phones and sms in their campaign, human rights, and political work. (Thanks Katrin) They are still looking for experienced campaigners, human rights, and social justice activists who are using sms messaging and cell phones in their work. http://www.smartmobs.com/archive/2005/05/25/mobile_active_c.html MobileActive Highlighted on Textually May 25, 2005 | Marty From Textually: NGOs Green Media Toolshed and aspirationtech.org - who's motto is "better tools for a better world" - are hosting the first-ever gathering of activists and organizers using cell phones and sms in their campaign, human rights, and political work. The event will be in Toronto, Canada on June 23-25. They are still looking for experienced campaigners, human rights, and social justice activists who are using sms messaging and cell phones in their work. Below is the announcement. 1 comment « first‹ previous…131415161718192021next ›last » About Blog Mobile Data Directory Strategy Resources Press (CC) 2007 MobileActive | info [at] mobileactive [dot] org Built on Drupal