[NEW EVENTS ADDED] After a slow August, September is bursting with events. Mark your calendars, there's something for everyone this month! And, as always - if you know of other events of note for this community, please add them in the comments!
Our Events:
23 September, Women and Mobile Tech Salon (New York, NY, USA) MobileActive is hosting a tech salon this month to discuss mobile tech and the particular needs of women to improve their lives, health, and economic status.
We will have short talks by women leaders in the mobile tech-for-social-change field. Register here!
Publishing for the mobile web is an important way to reach audiences on mobile phones. This screencast demonstrates an easy-to-use tool that can enable many content producers pubish for the mobile web. Wordpress.org has developed software which lets many around the world create websites fairly easily. This tool, the Wordpress Mobile Pack, makes it easy for those content producers to also publish on the mobile web.
In this short how-to video, we show how easy it is install the Wordpress Mobile Pack and generate a mobile version of websites, along with pointers to the more advanced features of the software.
Publishing for the mobile web is an important way to reach audiences on mobile phones. This screencast demonstrates an easy-to-use tool that can enable many content producers pubish for the mobile web. Wordpress.org has developed software which lets many around the world create websites fairly easily. This tool, the Wordpress Mobile Pack, makes it easy for those web publishers to now publish on the mobile web.
In this short how-to video, we show easy it is install the Wordpress Mobile Pack and generate a mobile version of websites, along with pointers to the more advanced features of the software.
The Mobile Minute is back with the latest mobile news. What's happening today? FrontlineSMS now supports MMS via email and offers scheduling features, an infographic breaks down the overlap between social networks and mobile phones, non-profits are ramping up their use of mobile giving campaigns, and Google introduces a new computer-to-phone voice service.
The devastating floods in Pakistan have been covered by trained reporters and mainstream media outlets around the world. Citizens, often on the front lines of the flood, have also been contributing thousands of reports though mobile phones, in part enabled by the citizen journalism service SeenReport.
SeenReport (from “see ‘n report”) is a citizen journalism service through which users can submit photos, videos, and text accounts of news as it is happening via SMS, MMS, or e-mail. SeenReport won a 2010 mBillionth award, a first-ever contest which recognizes mobile content in South Asia. A YouTube video explains more about the service.
The SeenReport platform is designed to augment stories on online news sites. The platform has been purchased and customized by other media organizations in Pakistan, which helps to both promote citizen journalism in the country and to create a revenue stream for SeenReport.
The SeenReport platform is designed to augment stories on online news sites. The platform has been purchased and customized by media organizations in Pakistan, which helps to both promote citizen journalism in the country and to create a revenue stream for SeenReport.
Brief description of the project:
SeenReport is a citizen journalism service through which mobile users can submit photos, videos, and text accounts of news as it is happening via SMS, MMS, or e-mail.
Target audience:
The target audience is any individual in Pakistan with a mobile phone who wishes to submit news content for broader dissemination.
Status:
Ongoing
Anticipated launch date:
What worked well? :
SeenReport is highly customizable, which allows purchasers to adapt the service to their unique needs. It has received 500,000 reports across the spectrum of adopters.
What did not work? What were the challenges?:
Funding is a challenge, though the monthly recurring license fee model for adopters is a significant source of revenue. At launch, there were technical issues because the initial response was beyond expectation. The SeenReport group had to scale the technology, rebuild it, and roll out additional features.
The SeenReport software, a cloud-based, open-source technology, was created in-house by a small team of engineers. SeenReport also sells this software-as-a-service to other media organizations interested in developing their own citizen journalism initiatives.
The SeenReport software, a cloud-based, open-source technology, was created in-house by a small team of engineers. SeenReport also sells this software-as-a-service to other media organizations interested in developing their own citizen journalism initiatives.
