Original mobile technologies

Led by Josh and Jordan

Mobile in this context

anything a “dumb” phone has

• calling
• SMS
• radio combined with internet

Why Mobile is awesome

• don’t have to install an app
• SMS is instant
• SMS open rate is very high
• Note that you shouldn’t

Why Mobile sucks

• costs per message (sometimes
• interface: text messages are short and have difficult data formatting
• tools for developing are not up to par with the rest of modern web development

Josh has worked on projects of various sizes

• sending SMS to thousands of users
• smaller projects setting up community radio
• automated SMS services

Questions

• We have a current system. How can we use it better?
• What is the best way to use mobile for our projects?
• Who should we target using SMS messaging?
• What are the most effective kinds of things to share?
• Never used SMS to reach out to our audiences, but we want to try it, particularly for monolingual Spanish speakers?
• What does it require in terms of resources and budget?
• Can we use it to target doners?

Various SMS services

• Revolution messaging
  • hosting
  • shared shortcode (having your own is really expensive)
  • reasonably priced

• Mobile commons
  • really big one
  • great product, very expensive

• Frontline
  • software you can run yourself off a laptop with a tethered phone or GSM modem
  • developed primarily for data collection work in Africa
  • can be an inexpensive way to get started, you can use this and port to a different service later

• Telerivet, web interface
  • sending out messages at demonstrations
  • getting feedback from guests at an event
  • $30/month for 5000 messages / day and 10,000 contacts
  • have to use your personal phone # or subscribe through a number through them | $0.01 per message inbound and outbound

• Mozeo
  • inexpensive

• SMS Blast
  • good for quick, one off messages

It’s a good idea to connect this services with an internet SMS number that lets you send and receive SMS over the internet

APIs to build your own system

• Tropo, free to develop
• Twillio
• Clickitel, expensive but flexible, has a lot of foreign shortcodes

Shortcodes

• a five digit code that sends messages to you
• usually use a shared code, with a keyword to route the message
• costs something like $10,000 to set up your own shortcode
• really helpful for signs and radio adds
• much easier to remember

Case Study: Presente

• can text to collect a phone number and collect a list of phone numbers
• then reply with “Text your email and zip to join”
• import into CRM system to followup by email
• can be challenging to differentiate messaging for SMS and emails
• can use SMS to collect donations, but you have to have your own shortcode
• you could also text out a link that goes to a mobile optimized web page that collects donations, but requires a smartphone with data plan

CRM Integration

• build your own custom
• sometimes can export a csv file and then import it into a CRM
• some CRMs have SMS integration, but usually with only with one provider

Other projects

• communicating with doctors for medical advice
• international development: mobile messages system for women who have stores in a market (like a replacement for email, in a community that didn’t have email)

Tips

• need to be able to parse the information in some way--if you collect multiple pieces of information, it’s all in one message
• using delimiters (like comma separated information) doesn’t work very well-9 out of 10 people will mess that up
• keep it simple, collect one or two pieces of information
• register a lot of different spellings of your keyword, to account for misspellings
• can use a different keyword to specify language preference (Spanish vs. English, for example)
• short bursts of messages are better than longer messages with multiple/complicated asks
• make sure you give people a first message with an opt-out option

Other tools

• vojo.co
  • mobile mapping and storytelling system
  • can do MMS
  • mobile blogs sent over SMS

• WhatsApp

• Snapchat

• cel.ly
  • social networking over SMS

• mailchimp
  • gather for collecting data at events (a little bit expensive)

Budget

• Telerivet recommended as a relatively low cost service
• Frontline is virtually free, and a good way to get started at very low cost

Other uses for mobile

• walking tours, have a number that you call from each location with a recorded message
• “people’s Skype” built for occupy--call a number and use multiple crowd members phones to broadcast a message
• OPD sends out alerts, and you can text back a number, which the OPD will then send the same message to them

Research on teen use

• Pew Internet Research, a number of years ago, did some research what mobile use is higher in Latino communities, compared to white communities
• Anecdotal evidence says that current teens use mobile and texting more than ever before, but no hard research numbers

ussd

• a low level mobile system, like sms, for messaging
• used in a lot of other places in the world to collect multiple points of information
• uses one connection for multiple messages, rather than several individual messages

Callback systems

• You text to the shortcode, and then it calls you back
• Example use is that user is called back, given a recorded message with talking points, and then connected to their congress person to talk about a particular issue
• EFF and The Day We Fight Back have used this
• The Day We Fight Back has an open source platform they built on Twillio that you can use, but you have to host it