Original mobile technologies
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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
- 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