16 posts categorized "Current Affairs"

Here's an inspiring TED Talk about the power of text messaging:

When Nancy Lublin started texting teenagers to help with her social advocacy organization, what she found was shocking -- they started texting back about their own problems, from bullying to depression to abuse. So she's setting up a text-only crisis line, and the results might be even more important than she expected.

Watch the video above or head over to TED.com to watch - it's five-and-a-half minutes well worth your time.

Law firm Arent Fox has posted an important piece over at their corporate site regarding 'common carrier' status and how it relates to text messaging. Head over to their site to read the entire piece. The excerpt below is from an overview of a presentation they'll be giving about this topic at the Bisnow Growth Expo:

Can text messages save the economy? Maybe. But Arent Fox’s Mike Hazzard and Jason Koslofsky say the US will have to update common carriage principals and regulations first. Common carriage principals are applied to the Internet, allowing consumers and businesses to communicate with little interference from network operators. Giving them the freedom to do business, build business, and boost our economy. However, since the FCC has yet to clarify how text messaging (aka SMS) applies to common carriage, Luddite lawyers are seeking to have archaic regulations (like the 20-year-old regulations on “junk faxing”) applied to text messaging. This means carriers may block and censor texting at will, and charge any price they want (i.e. limited openness to do business). Find out how regulation updates for texting could boost our economy in Arent Fox’s latest legal alert here.

Don't miss the article here.

When the FCC issued its network neutrality ruling in December they declared mobile data providers exempt from the principal of network neutrality. But apparently this wasn’t enough for some parties; Verizon and MetroPCS promptly sued the FCC in an attempt to force a repeal of the fresh regulations. The FCC responded, noting that regulations need to be published in the Federal Register before you can challenge them. The opponents of net neutrality clearly are not trigger shy.

The FCC expected a court challenge, but another troubling development may preempt the need for a legal fight. On February 17^th the House Energy and Commerce committee will hold a hearing regarding net neutrality. Following the hearing they will hold a Congressional Review Act vote – which if passed would both overturn the regulation and prevent the FCC from ruling on the issue in the future. If the Congress overturns the FCC’s ruling in this manner it will truly be the end of net neutrality.

So what does this have to do with mobile marketing? If the wireless carriers have the right to degrade, throttle and block services on their networks, they have the right to degrade, throttle and block mobile marketing campaigns. Anything would be fair game – restrictions on in-App advertising, mobile search and display ads blocked unless delivered by preferred networks, and mobile commerce forced through carrier platforms instead of neutral parties such as PayPal. The point is not to ponder every possible hypothetical; you either understand what is at stake or you do not. Thankfully, Public Knowledge, a Washington, D.C.-based public interest group has worked tirelessly to educate Americans about what is at stake.

On Monday they launched ‘The Internet Strikes Back,’ a new campaign to encourage national day of action: 

The Internet Strikes Back is a day - February 17th - where we are asking the Internet to call your Representative and tell them how important Net Neutrality is.

Go to www.TheInternetStrikesBack.org to find out more, get a button for your website, and even sign up to participate in advance.  If you sign up in advance, you will get a text message on the 17th that will automatically connect you with your Representative.

In January, President Obama declared in his State of the Union address how important it is to bring high speed wireless access to nearly all Americans. On Thursday, Obama declared that “we can’t expect tomorrow’s economy to take root using yesterday’s infrastructure.” We can’t expect to see the innovation that will drive tomorrow’s growth if we allow a handful of corporations to cripple that infrastructure.

I urge you to visit www.TheInternetStrikesBack.org and stand up for net neutrality.

With the recent flooding in Pakistan which killed 1,400 people, numerous organizations are stepping up with a relatively new and popular way to make donations. The mGive Foundation and several of their partners have launched campaigns which allow people to text donations which will aid victims. In the past, texting donations has proven to be effective because it is guaranteed that they will arrive to their intended destination. It is also extremely easy and fast, once a person hears about the campaign they simply pull out their cell phones and make the donation. Even Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has made a donation via text message.

“I just texted a contribution myself, because we know from our own experience, particularly in Haiti, small donations can add up to make a big difference,” Secretary Clinton said earlier this week. “Americans have always shown great generosity to people facing crises worldwide. So I urge Americans to join this effort and send some much needed help to the people of Pakistan.”

To read the entire article and learn how you can help, click here.

Mobile marketing is stretching into nearly every industry, including to end the abuse of animals. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) have launched their “Elephants Never Forget” campaign to raise awareness about the abuse of animals all around the world.

“Mobile gives PETA the tools to deliver our messages to a laser-targeted demographic of young music fans at the Vans Warped Tour and allows us to get the word out about our future initiatives,” said Joel Bartlett, director of marketing at PETA, Norfolk, VA.“No longer is a computer necessary to stay informed and get active for animals—that can now happen anytime, anywhere,” he added. 

To read the entire article, click here.

To learn more about mobile marketing, visit Ez Texting.

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.

The New York Times ran a story over the weekend over a different usage of text messaging related to the Haitian earthquake. The mobile donations story is important in so many ways, but so is this:

From his makeshift workstation, Ryan Bank spends hours sifting through thousands of electronic cries for help from Haitian earthquake victims, many detailing the horrors of dead family members, hunger and homelessness.

“I’m hungry and I have no one,” says one text message from a Haitian man living in a tent city with thousands of others whose homes were destroyed in the quake. “People are unable to breathe due to the smell of the dead,” says another.

Mr. Bank, a Coast Guard volunteer who runs his own technology company in Chicago, said he had received more than 18,000 messages. “Most of them are utterly heartbreaking,” he said while staring at a list of messages sent to him through a new emergency relief effort that relies on text messages and social networking Web sites to help coordinate humanitarian aid in Haiti.

Read more @ the New York Times.

As you probably already know, Haiti has been devastated by 7.0 magnitude earthquake:

The earthquake, the worst in the region in more than 200 years, left the country in a shambles. As night fell in Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital, fires burned near the shoreline downtown, but otherwise the city fell into darkness. The electricity was out, telephones were not working and relief workers struggled to make their way through streets blocked by rubble.

So what can you do to help? The New York Times has a collection of information. If you want to donate money to relief efforts right now, using your cell phone, you have three options:

• You can text HAITI to 90999 to donate $10 to Red Cross relief efforts in Haiti.
• To make a $5 donation from your phone text "ONEHEART" to 85944 & confirm by replying "YES", or go to www.sophiasheart.org to make a donation.
• Text the word “Haiti” to 85944 to donate $5 on behalf of the Rescue Union Mission and MedCorp International.
• Text the word “Haiti” to 25383 to donate $5 On behalf of the Internal Rescue Committee.
• Or, you can donate $5 to Earthquake Relief In Haiti by texting YELE to 501501 and visit www.yele.org (supported by Wycelf Jean)
  

P.S.  In the past we've covered other mobile-based charity efforts. Read about them.

To Text or not To Text...in a particular situation is a question the New York Times explores on Moral of the Story, their Ethicist columnist's blog. The issue:

We're not going to reveal all the answers here, but we will post the opening to the argument, which is addressed from a rather philosophical viewpoint:

Seek consent and do no harm is a useful moral precept, one by which some couples, that amorous community of two, wisely govern their erotic lives, but it does not validate ubiquitous text messaging. When it comes to texting, there is no authentic consent, and there is genuine harm.

Neither teenagers nor young workers authorized a culture of ongoing interruption. No debate was held, no vote was taken around the junior high cafeteria or the employee lounge on the proposition: Shall we stay in constant contact, texting unceasingly? Instead, like most people, both groups merely adapt to the culture they find themselves in, often without questioning or even being consciously aware of its norms. That’s acquiescence, not agreement.

From there the Ethicist covers everything from voting rights in colonial Williamsburg to the bizarre BlackBerry messaging induced chaos in the New York State Senate.

Wonder what any of this has to do with text messaging? Head over to the New York Times.

Check out our new case study about Choptank Electric, a non-profit energy cooperative that serves the entire Eastern Shore of Maryland. The co-op is owned by its members and provides electricity to more than 52,000 customers. They've partnered with Ez Texting to promote an innovative program that sends text messages to interested customers reminding them to cut back on power usage during 'peak' hours, when wholesale costs are the highest:

The company created an energy-saving initiative called “Beat The Peak." This is how they explained the program to their members: "Beat the Peak" is a voluntary program where members are encouraged to conserve or limit energy usage during peak times. "Peak" times are those when the Cooperative is purchasing wholesale power at the highest prices. By cutting back on the amount of wholesale power purchased during these peak, high-priced periods, the Cooperative can reduce its total wholesale power costs. Reductions in wholesale power costs are passed through directly to the members in our power cost adjustment.

Check out the entire cost effective, environmentally friendly case study @ Ez Texting.