Cellphone ascendancy
Karaitiana Taiuru wrote recently about realising that his cellphone has become his most important gadget for connection, information and communication:
…i had misplaced my cell phone for 90 minutes. I was about to walk into a meeting when i realised my cell phone was not in any of my suit pockets. The over-powering sense of loss and displacement that i felt for that 90 minutes was peculiar and overwhelming.
At that point i realised that i did not know how to ring my business colleagues, dial any one of the many phone conferences i regularly participate in nor did i know how to ring any of my family. All of the phone numbers were stored in my cell phone along with other encrypted files that i require on a daily basis.
It makes me realise that if i was to have only one item for an extended time i would choose my cell phone second and my laptop first. Both items are my main communication lines to the world.
[Via Karaitiana Taiuru - Blog: Importance of a cell phone.]
So, if the cellphone is more important even than a laptop, how does that affect how community organisations might choose to connect with volunteers, funders, sponsors, ‘clients’ and the general public?
Does your website work for a cellphone user? Are your emails appropriate for cellphone users? Can people contact your organisation via txt message, or receive information via SMS?
How do cellphones play a role for your organisation?
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July 17, 2008 No Comments
Txt to save power
One free power saving tip arrives on your cellphone each day. This is one way to keep people engaged and informed.
Free text POWER to 3642 and get FREE power saving tips direct to your mobile.
[Via Powersavers: Get free powersaving tips straight to your mobile!.]
If you txt that number you’re added to a distribution list — which isn’t very clear from the quoted section above. Once you send that txt, a reply lets you know you’ll now receive a maximum of one text message per day, and that you can send ‘Stop’ to be removed from the distribution list.
June 22, 2008 No Comments
Novels at 140 per
A cellphone can traditionally handle 140 characters in each txt message. What can you do with that? In Japan, a lot:
Novels written and delivered on cell phones have been a huge fad in Japan, with 5 of the 10 bestselling novels of 2007 in the island nation originally composed on cell phones.
[Via Read/WriteWeb: Quillpill: Cell Phone Novels Escape Japan.]
What can you do with that?
June 20, 2008 No Comments
Small change or big? $1 a day casual cellphone data
My cellphone, a Sony Ericsson K800i, has a screen only marginally bigger than a postage stamp. That’s part of the reason why I don’t really actually use it much for anything except phonecalls and txting (and taking photos). That, plus my fear of the cost of doing anything else.
When I was in Hamilton for the Engage your Community conference though I experimented one evening with looking at a few RSS feeds and (trying) to read a couple of news items from Stuff, or maybe it was the NZ Herald. That was all fairly unsuccessful — it was slow and the web pages were truly dreadful and unreadable on the phone.
A month or so later I received the bill for that attempt: $20! I won’t be trying that again in a hurry.
Or maybe I will. On 11 July the iPhone will finally arrive in New Zealand. I’ll be buying one as soon as possible, because I’m just that sort of person.
With the iPhone comes proper web surfing, email, RSS feeds and so on. And with the arrival of the iPhone comes a huge change from Vodafone. I’ll let Rod Drury explain it, in his post $1 a day:
Vodafone launches $1 a day mobile broadband
Vodafone has blown apart the mobile data market with the launch of its new casual rate of $1 a day.
From July 28, customers will be able to surf the net, download music and games and play on their favourite sites without committing to a fixed monthly data contract.
The $1 a day casual rate gives customers up to 10MB of data – more than enough for most casual users on their mobile devices. Customers who go over that limit will be charged at $1 per megabyte and users who regularly need more can take advantage of our suite of data plans.
[Via : Rod Drury > $1 a day.]
Read Rod’s full post for more of the story, and also read the many many comments on his post, including those from Paul Brislen, boss of Vodafone.
So why am I mentioning this? Because it will change the way Kiwis use their cellphones. For community organisations that means they may change the ways they go about their business. It also definitely means that the people they are trying to reach — volunteers, clients, customers, stakeholders — all have more possibilities open to them.
We’ll keep an eye on this. Change is in the air.
June 18, 2008 No Comments
Returned and Services’ Association does digital poppies
The RSA - The Royal New Zealand Returned and Services’ Association Inc. is perhaps one of the last organisations I’d expect to be implementing creative digital ideas. But their digital poppies for cellphones show that I’m quite wrong:
Poppy goes Digital!
“Support the RSA and buy a mobile poppy! All proceeds from each sale will go to the Annual Appeal. The annual Poppy Day Appeal embodies the core values of the RSA — remembrance and welfare. Thanks to Voeveo our mobile poppy is available here
April 23, 2008 No Comments
