ONLINE EVENT: Mobile Wrap Up

benrigby — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 22:30:02 GMT

Thanks for all the action yesterday around mobile tech & social change. Lots of interesting topics discussed. Great examples from Katrin - if you haven't already, check out MobileActive.org - it's where I go to keep up with what's happening in mobile activism.

It seems like the most common question of the day was: how do I get started?

If I were me and I had a reasonable amount of $ in the bank, I would hire a vendor like mcommons.com right off the bat. Note that I do not work for them or get anything at all by recommending them. I just think they're a good shop and they've got the easiest path to getting started.

Ok, now, if I were really me and had no money in the bank, I would hack together a solution for prototype testing purposes using my cell phone and a laptop. See the article I wrote here on how to do this: http://mobileactive.org/wiki/Desktop_SMS_Campaign_Tools. I'd use this solution to do lots of testing and quick iterations until I figured out what worked.

The other thing I'd be thinking about (especially in the US, England, and Australia) is how to get on the iPhone - assuming that there was a strategic direction there that makes sense. Or at least, I'd start thinking about it. Or maybe just buy an iPhone manual and read it at night. Something to get the juices going in that direction... because it's like the Web in 1995... we're just starting to see URLs on billboards and it's all novel. But in a few years we'll be thinking... 'how did I live without a suite of smartphone apps.'

Wireless Connectivity

ONLINE EVENT: Mobile Wrap Up