9 posts categorized "Culture"

We'd like to point out a great article over at SmarterTechnology.com. Writer Dennis McCafferty looked at the great things that Ez Texting client Saddleback Church is doing with text messaging:

One of Ez Texting's more high-profile customers is Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif., one of the largest churches in the nation. (Superstar minister Rick Warren is the founder.) The church selected Ez Texting's group-text messaging platform and then connected its entire membership database to the Ez Texting SMS gateway. This large-scale connection uses application programming interface (API), which allows the church's computer system to interact with the Ez Texting messaging system for seamless, automated communications. When parents attend services, they get alerts when a situation comes up involving one of their children attending a program outside the main church. This replaced an older, more antiquated pager system. Saddleback also sends daily Bible verse messages via text.

During major services, such as those for Christmas and Easter, Saddleback integrates text messaging within the program. The most recent Easter service, for example, was held at Angel Stadium in Anaheim and broadcast on XM/Sirius satellite radio, as well as via a Webcast. Those attending in virtual fashion were encouraged to text Saddleback to 313131 to interact when a trivia contest was featured. The church has also used the texting connection to send information to interested audiences about its history and mission, and for message-building and recruitment purposes.

Want to learn about how to use text messaging for your church? Head over to the ministry resources center.

Public Knowledge is a Washington, D.C.-based public interest group working to defend citizens' rights in the emerging digital culture. They have filed an important petition with the FCC:

Text messaging is a part of everyday life for people—a fast and convenient form of communication useful in every situation. Because of its importance, in 2007 Public Knowledge and others filed a petition with the Federal Communications Commission asking that it clarify that text messaging is subject to the same nondiscrimination rules as voice communications.

You can learn more about the petition (and sign on) @ http://www.publicknowledge.org/issues/text-message-petition

So why is this an issue? Let's look at an article in yesterday's New York Times:

When the earthquake devastated Haiti, Catholic Relief Services tried to gather contributions for its efforts using the hottest trend in giving: donations via cellphone.

But the charity wanted to try a twist on the technology: when people sent a text message to donate, they got a reply offering to connect them via phone to the charity’s call center. The group hoped that the calls could build a stronger bond with donors, and garner larger contributions as well.

But just three days into the effort after the Jan. 12 earthquake, the charity got word that Sprint Nextel was demanding that the “text-to-call” effort be shut down. The charity had 40 days to abandon the feature or lose access to millions of Sprint customers.

Sprint’s original motivations are murky; it said that an intermediary company had failed to properly fill out a form to verify that it was dealing with a legitimate charity.

The conflict underscores a problem that public interest groups asked the Federal Communications Commission to address more than two years ago: the hazy legal status of text messages, which are controlled by telephone companies without any real government oversight. The laws that prohibit phone companies from interfering with voice calls do not apply to text messages, a fast-growing medium.

“We should be able to communicate with people the way they want to be communicated with, not the way the phone company wants them to be communicated with,” said Jed Alpert, a founder of Mobile Commons, the company that connects Catholic Relief Services and 100 other nonprofit organizations with text messaging networks. 

Read more @ The New York Times.
Check out the petition here.

There's a texting-themed trend piece over at the New York Times today, that goes from funny to not so funny, when divorce trials come into play:

Text messages are the new lipstick on the collar, the mislaid credit card bill. Instantaneous and seemingly casual, they can be confirmation of a clandestine affair, a record of the not-so-discreet who sometimes forget that everything digital leaves a footprint.

This became painfully obvious a week ago when a woman who claims to have had an affair with Tiger Woods told a celebrity publication that he had sent her flirty text messages, some of which were published. It follows on the heels of politicians who ran afoul of text I.Q., including a former Detroit mayor who went to prison after his steamy text messages to an aide were revealed, and Senator John Ensign of Nevada, whose affair with a former employee was confirmed by an incriminating text message.

Sounds straightforward so far - cheaters cheat, and they got caught by SMS. But there's more:

Proving adultery is not the only value of a text message to a divorce lawyer. Last year Mr. Karpf, the lawyer from Miami, represented a husband whose wife was seeking sole custody of their child. The wife claimed the husband had left her and the child. He countered, saying he left because she was physically abusive. She denied it until Mr. Karpf produced several text messages the wife sent her husband apologizing for her inappropriate behavior. “She set up the whole case for me,” Mr. Karpf said.

Robert Stephan Cohen, the lawyer who represented Christie Brinkley in her divorce from Peter Cook, said a spouse’s finding out about a cheating partner by reading their personal text messages would have a profound effect on how such cases were played out, both in court and among friends and family. Mr. Cohen predicted that the battles in even the most routine divorces would become uglier with more text messages as evidence.

“It’s much different than rumor running around about a husband at dinner with a babe in the back booth,” he said. “It’s in the spouse’s face. They read it over and over again. It’s harsh and hurtful.”

Read it all at the New York Times

This could be great for parents...not so much for teenagers:

Read more @ intoMobile

For the 10th Annual Late Night Bash at SXSW, event sponsor Playboy spiced things up with some 'uncensored' text-to-screen:

Read more @ Mobile Marketer.

A new report from Ad Age reveals the recent rise and success in marketing to Hispanic's via SMS:

Read the whole article here.

The Sydney Morning Herald reports on an unconventional text messaging application (ie what your future is going to look like):

Japanese technology can link a kettle to a mobile phone, so every time an elderly person boils water for their morning cup of tea a message is sent to a family member letting them know their relative is up and well.

Say that again?

"So without any invasion at all of a person's space or dignity, you are able to know that that person is alive and having a cup of tea or whatever the case may be," Mr O'Neill told AAP.

Read more @ The Sydney Morning Herald.

Who needs Pig Latin:

LONDON (Reuters) - R U cycle? Book! Fancy an adds down the sub? There's a gr8 new carnage.

It may look like gobbledegook, but the most streetwise of teenagers would have no trouble translating and responding to it in kind.

A new language is being developed by mobile phone-addicted kids based on the predictive text of their treasured handsets.

Key words are replaced by the first alternative that comes up on a mobile phone using predictive text -- changing "cool" into "book", "awake" into "cycle", "beer" into adds", "pub" into "sub" and "barmaid" into "carnage".

Those expressing excitement with the old-fashioned text phrase "woohoo!", now use the far more hip "zonino!" instead.

The replacement words -- technically paragrams, but commonly known as textonyms, adaptonyms or cellodromes -- are becoming part of regular teen banter.

@ Reuters