David Harper

Mobile Monday NY Launches Blog & Forum – Join Us!

MobileMonday New York is a community of NY metro area mobile professionals. The open community promotes the mobile industry and fosters cooperation and networking among industry people and their companies by providing opportunities for personal and virtual contacts.

The NY Chapter of Mobile Monday's joins groups worldwide:

We’ve been seeing great turnout at our first few meetings this summer and our recent event held at the Associated Press world headquarters was the largest gathering yet. MoMo NY's end of the month October '05 event will be held at Google's NY office – details will be available over the next week on our blog located at http://www.momo-ny.com/ or http://www.mobilemonday-ny.com/.

Anyone with an interest in wireless/mobile is welcome, so please pass the word and bring along others! If you have any ideas or suggestions on future Mobile Monday gatherings, please come and share them with us or email me directly at events (at) wirelessink (dot) com

We also have a Discussion Group. This is where we'll exchange ideas for upcoming events and just talk about mobility in general.

Your participation is key in making this all worthwhile.

…and be sure to come over and introduce yourself.

David Harper

Warner Launches Mobile Portal For The Veronicas – Mash-Up Of Branded Content With Social Media

Warner understands the future of reaching the youth audience. They get it. You see, the definition of Mass Media is changing from Media Made FOR an Audience – to – Media Made BY the Audience. This media is social in nature and the under 24 crowd are hungry for it. Take a look at The Veronicas’ Web Site and see for yourself. The site is divided between branded content pushed down by the label and social media created by the artists and their fans. Embracing social media is an opportunity to build deeper relationships with an audience with the additional benefit of engaging customers through lifestyle marketing efforts they respond to.

 

The Veronicas are a set of twins from Brisbane, Australia whose first song, 4Ever, will be forever drilled into your forever grateful brain by the eternal (gotcha!) generosity of every radio and television show in the modern world. In addition to the label’s standard issue tour date info, music video, and downloads the girls are utilizing a dazzling variety of social media tools and services to reach their audience. Street teams. Open-source forums. MySpace page. A TextAmerica photoblog. A Diary. There’s more. The world has changed in other ways. The overwhelming feeling of a fan’s enthusiasm was once commonly experienced only at in-person venues such as concert, record store and mall appearances. The emergence of music videos and online interaction expanded the scope to include the home and PC. Now, the time has come for entertainment brands and artists to deliver the connection every fan is striving for to virtually anywhere & anytime – via Direct-To-Consumer mobile services. These personalized, off-portal mobile applications fuel a fresh, increased connection to the fan base, driving loyalty and interest. The audience is moving from their TV screens – to their computer screens – to their mobile phone screen. So to distribute your message you need to move to where the audience is moving.

People from Japan to Korea to Europe to the United States are engaging content on mobile devices in record numbers – 70 million 18-to-34-year-olds in the US have cell phones. Mobile subscribers are demanding the content and connections they care about to be available everywhere, all the time, and without a lot of work. Research from mobile media firm Enpocket finds that 30% of respondents age 18-24 prefer their mobile phones over TV, newspapers, the Internet, radio and magazines.

A few weeks ago Warner called in Wireless Ink to help glue together branded content, ringtone partners, and audience generated social media into a single portal and make it available to fans on their mobile phone. “Any device”, they said. “Any carrier. No multiple versions of apps to distribute, download and install.” They simply wanted to push fans to a single address – as cleanly and neatly as possible. Wireless Ink provided Warner with a platform to publish content, a layer that connects a variety of social media, and a persistent mobile space to point live-venue and SMS marketing promotions. The whole process took approximately 15 minutes. Did I mention they needed it quick?

The Official Veronicas’ Mobile Site is now in soft launch. The girls start touring this month and as the fan base grows the mobile site will grow along with them. Wireless Ink is excited to be a part of it all…

…besides I can’t get 4Ever out of my head.

Peek into the secret life of the Veronicas at the Official Veronicas Mobile Site. Simply fire up your phone mobile browser and point it to: http://winksite.com/wbr1/veronicas

David Harper

Direct-To-Consumer Mobile Portals & Winksite

Everyone Has A Mobile Phone

  • 750 million mobile devices will be sold this year compared to 250 million PCs
  • 2 billion mobile phone users worldwide

…creating a new generation of content creators & consumers.

Soon…Media Dominance
Research from mobile media firm Enpocket finds that 30% of respondents age 18-24 prefer their mobile phones over TV, newspapers, the Internet, radio and magazines. Across all age groups, mobile phones were preferred over the Internet coming in second only to TV. (70 million 18-to-34-year-olds in the US)

This Media Dominance Comes With A Twist
The definition of Mass Media is changing from…
Media Made FOR an Audience – to – Media Made BY the Audience.

It’s Their World.
We’re talking about social media people really care about…
Feeds. Functions. Fotos. Friends. Favorites.

Branded Content + Audience Generated Social Media
…it comes at them from a variety of fragmented sources & services.

Blogs. Photoblogs. Podcasts. Vidcasts. Social Networks. Event Aggregators. Indie Artists. Media & Entertainment Companies.Various Web Services & API’s. This availability of social media is driving up demand for constant access to it.

  • Mobile subscribers are demanding the content and connections they care about to be available everywhere, all the time, and without a lot of work.
  • Brands, Media & Entertainment companies need to rapidly pull together assets, partners and audiences under a single umbrella they control.

Needs naturally arise…

  • How do you access the content on your phone?
  • How do you personalize the experience?
  • How do you glue it all together?

Choice 1: Carrier Portals
Operator portals are too slow and too rigid to keep up with this tsunami of user-generated content and do not provide subscribers with the tools necessary to organize it. This has contributed to the off-portal migration of services and the breaking down of the carrier walled gardens. Case in point, 70% of Vodafone’s mobile data revenues are now being generated by off-portal content.

Choice 2: Third-Party Mobile Portals
Meanwhile AOL, Google, Yahoo, and MSN are routing around the operators with their own flavor of the walled garden. Sure you can obtain access to their content and partners but the experience is not that much different from that of the carrier portals.

Choice 3: Winksite: Direct-To-Consumer Mobile Portals
Winksite helps mobilize, organize, personalize (and locate) fragmented, social media.

How Does Winksite Work?
In minutes, you can set up a Direct-To-Consumer (or personal) portal for the Mobile Internet outfitted with features that mashes-up branded content with audience generated social media.

  • RSS-To-Mobile Publishing (Syndicated Blogs, News Feeds & Events)
  • Chat, Blog, Polls, Forums & Events
  • Any Mobile Phone
  • Any Carrier Network

Pulling It All Together. Who’s Doing It?
Over 10,000 publishers including brands such as FUSE TV, BoingBoing, Creative Commons, O’Reilly’s MAKE Magazine, Cinema Minima, The Industry Standard and The Creative Weblogging Network responded to Winksite’s benefits during the last 18 months by creating mobile portals. These branded spaces along with those of individual publishers generated close to 200 million mobile screen views during that time.

The users are an attractive demographic – 16-24 years old – 35% and 25-34 – 36%, hailing from 139 countries and 69 mobile carriers (55% U.S).

David Harper

Politics To Go: Winksite Mobile Case Studies

In a recent post titled “Politics to Go: How Mobile Technology Empowers Just-in-Time Politics” I mentioned my contribution to GWU’s “Politics to Go” handbook. I was asked at the time to prepare a few examples of how Winksite is being used by established and indie/grassroot organizations to reach a mobile audience. These brief case studies are provided below for those who may find them to be of interest.

Progressive U Mobile
According to some, the United States is in the midst of a culture war. The war is being waged on many fronts, but one thing is increasingly clear: this cannot be defined as a battle between the old and the young. The polarization created by the culture wars is evident on college campuses, and even among high school teenagers. Progressive U was founded to build a new generation of leaders and influencers. Progressive U provides a voice for progressive students and other problem solvers using mobile media channels, allowing people to study and discuss creative solutions to social problems, economic issues, and cultural conflict. In short, Progressive U Mobile is a new type of community for young people, providing them the tools to reach out to their communities to build further understanding and support.

Chechnya Mobilized
War rages on in Chechnya. Human rights violations and violence against civilians continue unabated. People affected have a story to tell, and they want the world to hear it. What they do not have is a computer, or meaningful access to one. Utilizing mobile phones as their printing press participants of Chechnya Mobilized bring the world the latest news, opinion and commentary direct from the Chechen war.

Creative Commons Mobile Library
A nonprofit corporation, Creative Commons offers a flexible range of protections and freedoms for authors and artists. The Creative Commons Mobile Library brings a series of those works to mobile phones. Recognizing that mobile technology will continue to impact the way the world accesses and uses content on phones, the goal of the CCM Library is to:

  • Provide a new generation of authors and artists with the tools they need to self-publish and distribute their works.
  • Revolutionize the way individuals and organizations publish and consume content over mobile networks.
  • Provide a new channel for distribution of texts that have been made available to the public for free.
  • Support the educational and recreational needs of a variety of mobile readers.
  • Contribute to the public library mission(s) of informational needs, literacy, lifelong learning, and recreational reading of the general public.
  • Create a richer, more productive learning environment for those without consistent access to a PC and wired Internet access.

Mobile Reporter
Mobile Reporter brings first hand information concerning the Crisis in Andizhan to your cell phone screen. The project was designed to fill the informational vacuum and make citizens in Uzbekistan as well as citizens of other countries throughout the world aware of what is happening in Andizhan. Mobile Reporter operates round the clock by its own staff correspondent from the streets of Andizhan.

Fuse Mobile
The overwhelming feeling of a fan’s enthusiasm was once commonly experienced only at concerts. The emergence of music videos and online interaction expanded the scope to include the home and PC. Fuse TV wanted to deliver this connection to fans anywhere & anytime. As such, Fuse Mobile was launched to fuel a deeper connection with their audience. The mobile space provided mechanisms for feedback, voting and Mobile Screen-To-TV Screen dedications. Fuse Mobile became a place where teenagers’ opinions and votes count. In addition, teenagers were able to stay in touch with not only their friends, but trends that make or break you at that age.

Slugger O’Toole Mobile
Slugger O’Toole is a news and research portal, looking at various strands of political aspects of life in Northern Ireland. It brings together and records news, commentary and diverse opinion. From time to time, Slugger O’Toole seeks to create substantial debate in given areas, like Unionism or Nationalism, or in more particular subject areas like the economy, cultural issues or the environment. Slugger O’Toole Mobile reaches an audience whose primary access to the Internet is though their mobile phone.

Dean for America Mobile Blog
Seizing the opportunity provided by the proliferation of mobile devices across campus’s nationwide a student built the Dean for America Mobile Blog as a vehicle to help spread support. The content for this unofficial Dean for America mobile site, which included Spanish language alternatives, was made available via RSS-To-Mobile Syndication. In addition, student volunteers had the ability to post comments in a forum and chat with each other from their mobile devices providing its users with a sense of community. These simple activities went a long way toward evoking the sense of active participation students would otherwise be missing while juggling work, studies and friends. In turn, using survey functionality the mobile site organizer was able to get a far better sense of what it was fellow students wanted and needed, and make better resource-allocation decisions in response.

BlogHer Mobile
BlogHer is a network for women bloggers to draw on for exposure, education, and community. The recent BlogHer 2005 Conference initiated the opportunity for greater visibility, learning and success for individual women bloggers and for the community of bloggers as a whole. For some information is both a tool and an end in itself. People crave the feeling of being plugged in. The BlogHer Mobile Site was launched so people could connect with the BlogHer community from their mobile devices, extending the BlogHer network and its pulse into the daily lives of women.

InstaPundit Mobile
Law Professor. Author. Correspondent. Musician. Techno-Libertarian. InstaJournalist. Glenn Reynolds the InstaPundit. Glenn’s blog is one of the most widely-read blogs in the world making him one of the most successful brokers of political commentary on the blogging scene. With an eye towards the intersection between advanced technologies and individual liberty, InstaPundit has gone mobile so to widen its audience. Not everyone uses computers to access information. Teens heavily rely on mobile devices to retrieve and share information. Internationally, phones are used just as much for information as communication. By publishing to a mobile site, InstaPundit Mobile broadens the scope of its audience, providing news and views the way a new generation prefers to see it.

David Harper

asap, AP's Service For A Younger Audience, Set To Launch Sept. 19th

In preparing for my Mobile Monday presentation at AP I was reminded that asap was launching the same day.

Appealing to the under-35-year-old audience will require more then attitude and delivery to iPods. It will also require a mash-up of news content with audience generated content.

(mash-up: Thinking about this Web 2.0 thing, Web Services Mash-Up, Mix, Match, And Mutate, and The mash-up revolution)

I'll be watching to see if and how AP does this. Hmmm…. that gives me an idea for tomorrow.

“asap is AP’s new multimedia service featuring original content designed to appeal to an under-35-year-old audience, a coveted but elusive demographic group, and to connect with them – on their terms.

asap builds on what makes AP great: the highest standards of journalism, global reach, creativity and staff dedication. Grounded in these values, this new product is provocative, smart, relevant and immediate.”

58mb (approx. 3-5 minute download depending on your connection speed)

To play the asap video you must have Quicktime installed your computer.

Download Quicktime for Windows –
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/win.html

Download Quicktime for Macs –
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/mac.html/

David Harper

Those Re-building After Katrina Need Your Help, Personally

A few days ago I was at an event where I met a young lady who had witnessed first hand the destruction and chaos caused by Katrina. She spoke passonately about how the lives of her friends and neighbors will be affected long after the media leaves town. I asked her to send me her story. She did.

…and this is what Diana had to say.

My family lost almost all of our belongings and memories when the Hurricane Katrina blew through with a force even stronger than the spirit of the southern community in which I grew up. Yet, our family considers itself blessed and lucky. My family is safe and healthy, but many are not. Some survivors of Katrina are injured from the storm, or are sick from the viruses and toxic germs that were washed ashore. We lost our house and many of our material possessions, but many lost much more. My dad lost his office, but so many more now have no job at all. We are blessed because we know where all of our family members are and they are all alive. Other families have been torn apart.

I grew up on the Mississippi Gulf Coast and until I moved to New York City a year ago, I had lived in Mississippi my whole life. As fate would have it, I was in Biloxi visiting my family when Katrina swept away everything on the Gulf Coast from Louisiana to Alabama. But, I believe that was part of the plan, so that I could help by finding donors, volunteers and assistance of any kind.

Mississippi and Louisiana are synonymous with spirit, tradition and pride. I ask you on a personal level to realize that this area now has nothing except those traits to rebuild upon. While those characteristics are immeasurable, they are not material. I was there, I lived through it, and I saw for myself the piles of debris, lumber, and personal possessions that now lay lifeless where antebellum homes and quaint downtown areas once stood.

These people, the people who are important to me and to so many others, now have nothing: no electricity, no water, no plumbing. They aren't victims or refugees or displaced by the storm. No, they are people with names and families and careers and goals who happen to need to re-build their lives and their community. By remembering their history and with your help…they will do just that.

In a place where simple tasks are now monumental, where everyday life is a fight for survival, where safety and health are no longer certainties upon which these communities can rest, they need your help. And when starting from scratch, even the smallest things mean the world.

Please send donations or help in anyway you can. I ask not just because it's personal to me or to my family, but because it’s personal to every single person who was affected by Katrina's wrath. Thank you from deep in the hearts of the Deep South.

David Harper

Mobile Monday New York – Sept. 19th at the Associated Press

The next MoMo New York meeting will be held on September 19th (due to CTIA-SF conflicts). It will be our first officially hosted meeting, so we are looking forward to not having to shout over the din of bar crowds. 🙂

The idea behind Mobile Mondays NY is to bring together NYC-area people and companies interested in mobile: to meet and chat with each other, see what others are doing, share ideas, and possibly even work together.

We've been seeing great turnout at our first few meetings this summer and hope even more of you can make it out to this meeting, hosted at the Associated Press world headquarters.

Anyone with an interest in wireless/mobile is welcome, so please pass the word and bring along others! If you have any ideas or suggestions on future Mobile Mondays, please come and share them with us! Your participation is key in making this all worthwhile. Be sure to come over and introduce yourself.

Details

  • Date: September 19th , 7 PM – 9ish PM
  • Cost: Free
  • Theme/Topics: Mobile Communities/Social Networking
  • Planned Agenda:
    • Quick welcome/intro
    • Four 15-minute presentations
      • Socialight
      • WINKsite
      • NextBlast
      • Dodgeball (Google)
    • Open discussion/networking with refreshments and snacks
  • Address:
    Associated Press
    450 W. 33rd Street (bet. 9th and 10th ave)
    New York, NY 10001
  • Map: 450 W. 33rd St., New York, NY
David Harper

O’Reilly’s Nokia Smartphone Hacks Acknowledges Winksite

Winksite received a few pages of mention in the recently published “Nokia Smartphone Hacks” written by Michael Yuan. As part of O’Reilly’s famed Hacks book series, the book provides power tips to users who want to make the most out their mobile phones.

Winksite was singled out for providing mobile phone users with the ability to create their own personalized mobile portals – helping them to tame their growing collections of off-portal, user-generated content – friends, feeds and favorites.

Get it here at Amazon.

David Harper

Politics to Go: How Mobile Technology Empowers Just-in-Time Politics

Today the first book that I ever contributed to came out. Its full title is “The Politics to Go Handbook: A Guide to Using Mobile Technology in Politics”. It officially launched at the Politics to Go Conference held at George Washington University.

This handbook introduces some of the latest mobile technologies, examines their current uses and political successes, considers future possibilities and challenges and offers simple how-to guides for implementing these new technologies into campaigns. The publication features ten diverse chapters of forward-thinking articles and practical guides written by 50 expert authors, totaling 131 pages of informative reading that will help you take your next campaign to the next level. The Politics to Go Handbook is available as an Adobe PDF document, and as a podcast (.MP3 format, runs 30:54, 10 MB).

Although I was not able to attend the event I had the pleasure of many conversations over the phone with Julie Barko, Editor, Politics to Go and Deputy Director, Institute for Politics Democracy and the Internet.

Here’s the official media release:

For Immediate Release, August 8, 2005
For more information: Kathie Legg
Phone: 202-994-1003

DAVID HARPER TO CONTRIBUTE TO THE POLITICS TO GO HANDBOOK, NEW PUBLICATION ON MOBILE TECHNOLOGY AND POLITICS AT GW’S INSTITUTE FOR POLITICS, DEMOCRACY & THE INTERNET

Washington, Aug. 10, 2005 – David Harper, founder of Winksite.com, will author a section in Politics to Go, a handbook on the political uses of mobile technology that anthologizes over 50 of today’s top names in technology and politics. The Politics to Go Handbook is published by the Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet (IPDI) at The George Washington University’s Graduate School of Political Management.

“The Politics to Go Handbook will serve as a manual for using mobile technology in the political realm,” said Carol Darr, Director of the Institute, “not only for candidates, but for issue advocacy groups, nonprofits, civic groups, political consultants, lobbyists, local governments and citizen activists.”

It also draws on the experience and expertise of experts from around the globe to describe the mobile political audience, predict how mobile tech will be used in future elections and discuss any roadblocks that may occur.

The publication will be released at an event hosted by IPDI and sponsored by Wired magazine on September 13, titled Politics to Go: How Mobile Technology Empowers Just-in-Time Politics. The event will introduce some of the latest mobile technology techniques, examine the current uses and political successes of mobile technology and discuss future possibilities and challenges. It will feature a gadget lab and sponsor display area. Two panels of visionaries, analysts and practical implementers will discuss these issues and facilitate an open question-and-answer dialogue with the audience.

The Politics to Go report release, panel discussion and hands-on event will run from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Tuesday, September 13, 2005. Breakfast will be served. The event is free and open to the public.

David Harper

BlogHer Foundation Sponsorships

Note: We like the approach Mena of Six Apart followed to sponsor attendees to Blogher…

… so we lifted part (mostly all) of our copy directly from her. Hope she doesn’t mind. Here’s the deal with minor adjustments.

As part of our participation in the upcoming BlogHer conference on July 30 in Santa Clara, Next Village will be covering the registration costs of three women bloggers from the WINKsite community. So if you’re a WINKsite user (if your not a member sign up here – registration is free) who wants to go to BlogHer and would be interested in Next Village covering your cost of registration (we won’t, unfortunately, be able to cover travel expenses), please send us an email to blogher@nextvillage.com.

Entries must be received by 7/20/05 and include answers to the following:

Your name:
Your email address:
Your URL:
Your WINKsite username:
Tell us a little bit about how you use your phone for activities other then voice calls?
Tell us a little bit about how WINKsite could be improved?
What do you hope to gain from attending the conference?

We’re looking for insight as to how to improve the WINKsite experience and feature set for women so the depth and quality of your answers will help us decide who we will be sponsoring.