ouroboros

W+K+Schmidt+Birkett+N900+OneDotZero = fun

As part of our effort on behalf of the Nokia N900, W+K London partnered with computational designer  Karsten  Schmidt and software architect Gary Birkett in conjunction with OneDotZero to demonstrate what happens when

per Birkett:

“we are using a 3 inch display to try to control a 70 foot display”. Based on the N900’s accelerometer, the software uses an interface that takes movement data from the handset and sends it to the projection app, created by Schmidt."

Mobile Weapon?

Connectivity: harbinger of a Tech-enabled Utopia?  Pain in the ass?

A connected world, the thinking goes, is an empowered, informed and an enlightened one. 

Of course, we've had a few World Wars since the telegraph and telephones were invented, so jury's out.

But fine, if connectivity is good, well then, mobile connectivity, is, well...it's like Utopia plus. 

Because while connectivity gives us show times on Fandango, mobile connectivity will both save the world and level it.

"The World is Flat"-ter Thomas Friedman's OpEd piece "The Land of No Service" in the 16 August 09 NYT describes a trip to the Okavango Delta in Africa, where there is little wireless connectivity.  He writes: 

"like it or not, coming here forces you to think about the blessings and curses of “connectivity.” “No Service” is something travelers from the developed world now pay for in order to escape modernity, with its ball and chain of e-mail. For much of Africa, though, “No Service” is a curse — because without more connectivity, its people can’t escape poverty."

And he may be right.

Because if you want to get out of poverty, you need to be able to save money.  And on a continent (!) where less than 20% of the aggregate population even has access to a bank account, that's a challenge.

According to the World Bank, 90% of Kenyans, 85% of Liberians and 95% of Tanzanians operate without access to banking services.  Enter services like M-PESA and Wizzit, providing the ability to "bank" and micro-transact remotely.

Each market is unique - M-PESA started in Kenya, Wizzit is operating in South Africa - and M-PESA Kenya has seen substantially higher adoption than Tanzania's M-PESA (read here for a CGAP paper on just this topic). 

But despite scale, replicability and market variations including "country demographics and cultures, market structures, business models, and strategic implementations", these experiments are being carefully monitored.  Mary Kimani, in "A Bank in Every African Pocket" writes about Wizzit’s South African mobile banking pilot operation, and quotes Mohsen Khalil, the World Bank’s director of global ICT:

"If this model works in South Africa...the World Bank will help the company expand coverage within and beyond the country. We may be looking here at . . . the most effective way to provide social and economic services to the poor.”

Hopalong Selebalo - an intern for ISS in the Organized Crime and Money Laundering Programme - quotes Brian Richardson,  Wizzit's CEO and MD, on the advantages of mobile banking in an ISS paper entitled 7 May 2009: Mobile Phone Banking in the South African Economy.  The key positives:

• the safety of not having to carry cash around
• the absence of risk of account closure for inactivity, which enables people that do not have a regular income to do banking
• lower costs, partly because there are no transaction-by-transaction fees
• saving of time by avoiding long distance travel for banking
• flexibility, in that users can change markets by making small business-to-business transactions immediately and reliably, and
• facilitating popular participation in the economy, which ultimately is positive for the national Gross Domestic Product (GDP)

Selebalo, despite the risk of abuse and money laundering via mobile, posits that "mobile banking could increase national rates of saving, increase incomes and boost the resilience of the economy. At a broader level, it could improve taxation, and encourage reinvestment of money that is currently not in effective circulation."

OK.  OK.

But can it help us win the "information war" going on in Afghanistan right now?

Maybe. Thom Shanker, in his 08.16.09 NYT piece "U.S. Plans a Mission against Taliban Propaganda", begins with a note that the Obama adminsitration acknowledges that they are "engaging more fully than ever in a war of words and ideas" in rural Afghanistan. 

And the proposed solution involves both (a) FM stations to combat pirate stations the Taliban has been operating - in some cases off the back of roving donkey carts - and importantly, (b) providing cellphone service.

How can cell coverage turn the tide?

“The ability to communicate empowers a population,”  said Rear Adm. Gregory J. Smith, NATO’s director of communication in Kabul. “That is a very important principle of counterinsurgency and counterpropaganda.”

Giving folks cellphone coverage gives them access to independent (read: non-Taliban) information sources.

"In southern Afghanistan, insurgents threaten commercial cellphone providers with attack if they do not switch off service early each night.

That prevents villagers from calling security forces if they see militants on the move or planting roadside bombs; the lack of cellphone service at night also hobbles the police and nongovernmental development agencies.

And the kicker?  Despite the fact that mobile-enabled transaction will inevitably help finance terrorism (and probably already have), according to Shanker:

"Expanding and securing cellphone service has the additional benefit of assisting economic development, officials said, as it could provide wireless access to banking systems for those who now must travel long distances for financial services."

But back to Utopia.  Or at least Wikipedia's definition of Utopia:

"a compound of the syllable ou-, meaning "no", and topos, meaning place. But the homonymous prefix eu-, meaning "good," also resonates in the word, with the implication that the perfectly "good place" is really "no place." 

Hmmm.  Given how effectively mobility has enabled us to "be" anyplace and noplace, connected to the big world and disconnected from the immediate, maybe Utopia IS the right analogy.

Weapon and Savior?

A "good place" that's "no place"? 

Mobility is transforming both society and culture.

And...oh wait - hold on.  I need to talk this call.

Qik in Iran

GPS Drawings

Human tech-hacking: Jeremy Wood creates art "drawing" with his GPS data contrail. 

Wood's GPS drawing gallery:

Mobility at the Youth Ball

and this image via Adam Frucci @ Gizmodo:

 

What's the sound of one hand clapping?  Ask Barack.

Mobile drama

[via mobile marketing magazine]

"20:20 London, Incentivated and the COI (Central Office of Information) have collaborated to launch ‘THMBNLS’, an interactive, ad-funded mobile soap opera for the Department of Children, Schools and Families. THMBNLS follows the lives of six teenagers and raises awareness of sexual wellbeing. The 22 weekly episodes will be available exclusively via the mobile Internet, and will be free to download. 

Viewers register online via their mobile browser at: www.thmbnls.mobi Traffic is being driven to the site via mobile banner ads placed across the six operator portals; 3, O2, Orange, T-Mobile, Virgin and Vodafone. The first of the weekly 30-second episodes was  released at 7pm on Friday 9 January, with viewers reminded to watch the next episode by text message or vCalendar entries they have previously downloaded to their phone thereafter. The ‘vCalendar’ can be downloaded to activate the handset’s alarm function, thereby avoiding the cost of additional SMS reminders."

I like the interface they've built to replicate the mobile experience online.

Hardware = Hygiene, Software = Love?

Interesting pop from the gang @ Pacific Crest Securities who give Apple an "outperform" nod for '09 handset sales with this quote:  "Apple will benefit as the main differentiation between high-end phones moves from hardware to software, which is one of Apple’s core competencies."

I'm expecting the ongoing and accelerating proliferation of Apple/Symbian/Android Applications - still a toss-up as to whether to refer to it as an "App-alanche" or "App-ocalypse" - to level the playfields and annoint new leadership in the battle for hearts and minds...

Nokia: World's Largest Computer Manufacturer

According to Softpedia today,

"as soon as smartphones have been included in the total number of computers sold in 2008, Nokia has received the title of the world's largest computer maker in the world...at 13.8% of the market, [including smartphones but NOT mobile phones or internet tablets]...the world's largest computer makers list starts with Nokia, followed by HP, Dell, Apple, Acer, Lenovo, RIM, and Toshiba. The count is stated to have included all PC sales, stand-alone the PDA and smartphone ones over four quarters, starting from October 2007 to September 2008."

Add that to MP3 players and digital cameras.  Intense.

Next Bit

Neat bit in Dawn Nafus and Karina Tracey's 'Mobile phone consumption and concepts of personhood'. During research on 'the social construction of individuality through mobile phone consumption', Nafus and Tracey found their English interview sample to "strongly associate the mobile with the perpetual reinvention of the individual." One seductive proposition of technology (mobile and otherwise) is exactly that: personal reinvention, free of local (social, professional, familial, etc.) limitations, and the plethora of parlayable possibilities presented...brands miss many opportunities trying to put Humpty-Dumpty back together again when they could be making a killing on omelettes.

\o/ FrontlineSMS Makes Us Better \o/

Ken Banks (@kiwanja on twitter) is an honest-to-goodness tech hero.  When much tech-related news and developments wallow in wonk and wank, or seem aimed at folks with more daily discretionary spending power than many global households make annually (PS3 Home launches!  Waaa waaaaah), Ken's FrontlineSMS (@frontlineSMS on twitter) is a free piece of software that enables NGO's and grassroots organizations worldwide to communicate rapidly and effectively with geographically dispersed groups using basic text-messaging (SMS) technology.  If you can get a signal, you can communicate/aggregate/congregate/advocate.  And it works in spite of the natural disasters and power outages that regularly cripple other tech solutions. 

Just how far ahead of the curve is Ken?

After a year of exhaustive research and millions spent, Larry Brilliant's Google.org announced (at TED 2008 last year) that they'd arrived at the conclusion that an SMS-enabled tool could be a good idea to invest MORE time and money to create a team to build and research and prototype and maybe, just maybe, deploy.  Net: according to Google, it would take years and millions to do, in effect, what FrontlineSMS had been doing for years.  Like announcing in 1973 that a moon trip looked "feasible".  Proof yet again that insitutional hubris and groupthink can blind even the smartiest of smartie-pants to nimble people with a passion doing a reverse windmill dunk over them.  [See "Salamis"]

Sure W+K sells soda and sneaks better than anyone, but we love passionate folks using innovative technologies to make peoples lives better.  We were honored to work with Ken on his web presence and logo - both of which had to work on low speed connections and use text characters (since many folks would interact with them only via text message).  BTW - the logo we developed with Ken is ASCII friendly and does some great stuff when you paste it into skype.  seriously. 

And it looks good on a button (see photo above).

\o/

Pet Shop Boys make Semacodes Fun

May 2008: 592 MM of China's 1.3B have mobile phones

Wow.  Not only is that huge from an ownership, personal use and network effect standpoint, consider "China's Mobile Revolution", by Michael Sheridanin, from the UK's 8 June Sunday Times.

"The mobile phone came of age in China...when [the] earthquake ripped through Sichuan province...victims used their phones to call for rescue, soldiers used civilian networks to organize supplies, families used text messages to exchange news of survival or loss and an increasingly angry group of citizens spread word of protests against corruption and lax building standards. The national conversation kept going thanks to a military-style logistics operation by the rival phone companies.

So integrated is the mobile communications device into Chinese society that the authorities have been puzzling for ages over the best way to channel investment for the future...[but] the government may soon discover that regulating the telecoms providers is a minor challenge compared with controlling the citizens who will ultimately use their services to communicate with each other."

In a January post Emily Turrettini noted ABCnet.au's report on "the ability of the Chinese Government to spy on the country's 500 million mobile phone users."  According to ABCnet, "Wang Jianzhou, head of China Mobile, stunned delegates [to the World Economic Forum in Davos] by revealing that the company had unlimited access to the personal data of its [300MM] customers and handed it over to Chinese security officials when demanded. 'We know who you are, but also where you are,' said the CEO."

Thank goodness OUR government and telco operators would never compromise our privacy like that...oh heck.

OMG - Nokia buys Symbian, MSoft screwed? Google kneecapped?

This is going to take a lot to process.  And there's a lot to be worked out (what does "royalty-free to members of the alliance" mean in practice?  Will this be Open like Linux, or 'Open' like...brrrr...AT&T/Verizon Wireless?). 

But OMG, IN YOUR FACE, iPhone (6MM handset sold US, 10MM projected by years end) and Google Android Handsets (None sold, nor to be sold soon):  Nokia (1 Billion handsets in market) just got all 'Open-Source' Symbian on you.

"On Tuesday, companies including Nokia, Motorola, NTT DoCoMo, LG Electronics, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, AT&T, Texas Instruments, STMicroelectronics and Vodafone announced that they will work together to make the Symbian OS open source. They will offer it under a royalty-free license to members of a new nonprofit group called the Symbian Foundation.

Symbian is used in about 60 percent of the world's smartphones [~200MM handsets], which means that open-source software will soon drive the majority of those devices. The proprietary model behind mobile operating systems from Microsoft, Research In Motion and Apple, then, will for the first time be in the minority."

- Nancy Gohring, IDG News Services, Symbian Shifts Mobile World to Open Source, for PC World

Golly. 

200MM handsets in market using Symbian.  Sure there will be legacy issues with handsets running older Symbian software, but c'mon.  Microsoft's like "yeah, no worries.  We don't see much of a change in the short term based on this announcement".  That's like the Titanic's captain saying "well, in the light of news about an iceberg dead ahead, we see no need to alter our current course".  Dude, did you read the FREE part?  The market leader against whom MSoft is struggling for dominance in the mobile OS market [Symbian] just made their product free.  Microsoft CHARGES people to use their mobile OS.

"It's unclear whether device manufacturers will want to continue paying high fees for Windows Mobile license when [Nokia] the market leader suddenly cut costs to zero." - J. Nicholas Hoover, Symbian's Open Source Gambit Ups Stakes in Mobile OS War, for Information Week

Really?  Unclear whether people will want to pay for something they can have for free?

Nokia just made a BOLD MOVE. 

Some say they've grabbed their future, others that they've just opened up mobility.  Good piece over at ZDNet byEd Burnette discusses Symbian deal winners and Losers.

Google on Mobile Advertising

From Reuters, from an on-stage interview by Ken Auletta of Google CEO Eric Schmidt:

"Speaking of the emerging market for Web-based advertising on mobile phones, Schmidt said the vast majority of Google searches on mobile phones were done on Apple Inc's year-old iPhones, which prominently feature a Web browser."

'Mobile looks like it will ultimately be the highest of ad rates,' because ads can be targeted by user location, he said."

Mobile Gaming and the iPhone

Opinion piece by Keith Boesky (ex-Eidos president) over on Gamasutra poses the question "Will Apple reinvent the mobile games space?"  While he doesn't mention N-Gage or Google Android OS, he raises some interesting points re: the financial implications/business opportunity for publishers, and the possibility for a "new age of gaming" where developers can build apps in their garage for love and for cheap again.

Key takeaways:

• 2.5 billion mobile "non-iPhones" globally, ~2% of them have downloaded ANY applications = install base ~50 million.  iPhone to top 10MM (est.) units sold this year, most will download apps (or sideload them through iTunes).  Arguably iPhone = 16% of the GLOBAL market for downloadable mobile apps.  (note: To enhance Nokia Game selling possibilities, Nokia is pre-loading N-Gage software on many of their devices.)
• Too often, Boesky notes, "Mobile games are developed to lowest tech specs" to allow maximal porting (the ability to redeploy a game on another device or form factor relatively cheaply), but apps built to lowest common denominator don't "cater to any unique attributes of any phone"...making for some pretty weak apps.  Or "Cr-apps".
• Not mentioned in the article, but relevant as well, is US Venture Capitalist Firm KPCB's $100MM "iFund", a pool of cash they've set aside to invest in companies that make iPhone and iTouch applications

The complete article here: http://tinyurl.com/5ywycy

I've been gaming since the early 80's (coding on my Tandy Corp Model I, level II) and in my experience, the mobile gaming experience on communications devices has sucked for years.  Most games were either crap or bad ports or both.  There are some promising publishers (THQ?  Glu?  Jamdat - oh wait...EA mobile) out there, but no-one's created the "must-have" mobile game. 

Why?

Big name publishers have looked at mobile as a hedge/defensive move/portfolio asset - not a serious focus.  console/PC titles earn bank, not mobile.  And unfortunately, investing for the future is hard when you've got quarterly numbers to make.

Carriers cripple the process with their soup of devices and form factors, tech and non-transparent dev/QA "testing" environments.  Want a game on their system?  Dumb it down to work on the devices with broadest penetration.  Or better, create a version that works on whatever latest device they're selling.  Which by definition won't have a big audience.  Minimizing revenue.   Oh - and they like exclusive windows.  Or they won't promote it.  No promotion = bad deck placement.  You see where this goes.

Independent developers didn't have the resources or portfolios to weather this crap.  So they've been doing web stuff.  Java, Flash. Facebook Apps. 

Which brings us back to the Apple iPhone SDK release.  And Google Android OS.  And Nokia's new-look N-Gage.  Apple's advantage out of the gate is homogenous devices and an iTunes delivery system, but...Nokia is working to open up its game dev systems (SDK's and API's), and devices should begin shipping soon with Google's Android OS. 

What form will the mobile Tetris, Pong or GTA take?  TBD...

First Android Developer Challenge Winners

50 winners have been selected for the first Google "Android Developer Challenge", and it was great to see the range of applications entered - wikipedia/map mobile mashups ("Wikitude"),  consolidated virtual presence management ("Sustain"), pervasive gaming ("City Slikkers") - it's in there.  And more.

Creativity (fueled by cash and visibility) is dangerously close to bring applied to the mobile canvas.  The folks over at Silicon Alley Insider did a nice job pulling together a list of winners names and apps, so do check it out - they even posted links to explanations of the apps where available.

And for your download pleasure, here's a nice, simply formatted .pdf of the winners - with images and explanations.  Download AndroidApps.pdf

It's worth reviewing to get a look at what's coming next...

Mobile to watch: Apple...Google...ADOBE??

Silicon Valley Insider's Hank Williams wrote a solid post that summarizes and contextualizes Adobe's latest 'Flash' move, the 'Open Screen Project'. The move is a direct play against Apple and Google to win hearts, minds and development time from mobile platform developers.

Three key takeaways:

1. No more licensing restrictions and fees for the Flash Player and the SWF file format = OEMs get to embed Flash for no $ and with no restrictions. Expect Flash EVERYWHERE.

2. Platform compatibility in a Flash: it sucked to have to redevelop Flash apps to ensure compatability on each new device, OS, and tech...now Flash apps will be split into two layers: the core functional application layer (HOW the program works and WHAT it does) and the platform-specific layer (WHERE the program works, and with WHICH technologies). So develop the core functionality, then (like a snap-on Nokia faceplate!) interchange the platform layer to fit the devices/platforms you'd like to target.

3. Consistency: The Flash Player will now be the same and operate the same, across all devices. "THE" next generation operating system? TBD. But in one master stroke, Adobe may well have created a platform level with iPhone OS, Android OS, and possibly Symbian - and portable (theoretically) across any of those platforms.

Some recognizable names are already on board with the effort, including Nokia, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, Qualcomm, Samsung, and Intel.

Mobile tidbits: "SMS and Chips"-chase

Jan Chipchase, the Indiana Jones of mobile anthropology, has been all over the place recently.

The NYT Sunday magazine ran an article yesterday entitled "Can the cellphone help end world poverty" - gives a ton of really interesting research on the impact of mobility on emerging markets/cultures.  The report includes this chestnut about adoption: there are 3 B cellphones...it took 20 yrs to sell the first 1 B cell phones; The next billion sold in 4; The next in two.

Also mentioned in the article: Ken Banks, head of kiwanja.net, and creator of Frontline SMS, a text messaging tool for which W+K is building a new site...

For more nutritive Chipchase-isms, listen to his TED talk "Our phones, Ourselves, or read about his life, that's clearly far more interesting than yours, at his blog  "futureperfect".

Frontline SMS

W+K is re-branding and relaunching the online presence for FrontlineSMS - see the current, non-W+K site here :) FrontlineSMS is a free mobile messaging communications platform built and run by Ken Banks and used by NGO's worldwide to better lives.  Apparently even the UN has taken an interest in the software because (a) it's free and (b) it allows for rapid prototype/testing.  Here's an excerpt from Ken's blog:

"There's a tendency to think that, as a free entry-level texting solution, FrontlineSMS is only relevant for smaller, grassroots non-profits who are most likely to lack the funds or in-house expertise to develop their own solutions. Over the past couple of years I've begun to see otherwise. As a case in point, this coffee project is being run by the UN. Not the suited, New York-based UN you see on TV, but a field-based team of UN staff and volunteers who simply wanted to try something. All they needed was a simple, low-cost tool which allowed them to rapidly prototype their idea.

...their pilot project is distributing prices from five large buyers to about 150 farmers, village leaders and farmers groups by SMS i...prices are going up for farmers, and the buyers are getting access to more quantity and better quality. Prices are collected via phone once a week and within ten minutes are entered into FrontlineSMS and sent out [to everyone in the program's phones]. The project has been successfully running for several months..."

W+K is proud to be helping Ken develop and support his vision.

When mobility is weaponized

Remember Google and Apple offering geospecifc info for your mobile devices?  Nokia buys NavTeq?  Your geographic position can be a great way to deliver context relevant info.  Or send troops to find you.

Afghanistan telcos fear Taliban bomb threats

Taliban militants threatened to blow up telecommunication companies in Afghanistan if they refuse to switch off their networks for 10 hours at nights. The threat is a response to fear of US military and other foreign forces using mobile phone signals to track down Taliban footprints and launch attacks on them, Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujaheed told The Associated Press.

“It has caused heavy casualties to Taliban and sometimes to civilians,” Mujaheed said. “If those companies do not stop their signal within three days, the Taliban will target their towers and their offices.”

AT+T gives away WiFi - Starbucks and Xohm?

According to the Dayton Business Journal, "AT&T Inc. is making free wireless Internet available at more than 10,000 hotspots nationwide on behalf of the company's broadband customers."

Three thoughts pop to mind:

• Starbucks: dump T-Mobile! 
• "Check, Sprint WiMax - your move" [insert Dr. Evil laugh here]
• Will the data charges on my Nokia N95 go down?  Sweet gravy, I hope so.
  

Notes on the 'Mobile Revolution'

A couple of quick items on the impact of mobility on lives -

"[mobile phones] are transforming culture, even as they spawn new markets. In Nairobi, a student paper caters to kids from across the city's high schools; submissions are sent in by text message, with articles written in textesewords broken into their smallest possible lucid components. Every few months or so, rumors circulate, breaking some code or other and giving free airtime or texts. Some people have learned to communicate for free with their regular clients or family by coding their ringing: one ring, I am on my way; two rings, I have picked up the kids; three rings, I love you." [Binyavanga Wainaina, in Bidoun]

"It's time that we recognize that for the majority of the world's population, and for the foreseeable future, the cell phone is the computer, and it will be the portal to the internet, and the communications tool, and the schoolbook, and the vaccination record, and the family album, and many other things, just as soon as someone, somewhere, sits down and writes the software that allows these functions to be performed." The BBC reports. [textually]

Iran:  Excerpts from a very interesting and thorough article published on Middle East Online on how in Iran, SMS has become a way for people to circumvent authority. "Young Iranians are texting each other with humorous, subversive or plain saucy messages while the religious conservatives who run their country are slumbering. [textually]

Japan: Last month in Japan, the year-end bestseller tally showed that mobile phone novels, republished in book form, have not only infiltrated the mainstream but have come to dominate it. The New York Times reports.  "Of last year's 10 best-selling novels, five were originally mobile phone novels, mostly love stories written in the short sentences characteristic of text messaging but containing little of the plotting or character development found in traditional novels. What is more, the top three spots were occupied by first-time mobile phone novelists" [textually]

Kenya:  According to a report in the New York Times on the continuing crisis in Kenya, "fuel, food and cellphone credit are in short supply". Who would have thought, even just a couple of short years ago, that in a time of humanitarian crisis cellphone credit would be uttered in the same sentence as 'essential' fuel and food items? [via Kiwanja.net]

and of course from FrontlineSMS [a W+K Client]: 

"FrontlineSMS is being used in 41 different countries, and in some cases by more than one NGO in that country. From helping blood donor clinics and human rights workers to promoting government accountability, keeping medical students informed about education options, providing security alerts to field workers, the capture and exchange of vegetable (and coffee) price information, the distribution of weather forecasts, the co-ordination of healthcare workers, the organising of political demonstrations, the carrying out of surveys and the reporting and monitoring of disease outbreaks, and election monitoring."

can't wait to read the novels that recontextualize this beautiful mess as incredibly logical developments.  Dirt is getting kicked up.  Society is being reengineered.  Usage scenarios are evolving like bacteria.

Forget the viral propagation of trends - we are looking at a receptive host getting hit by mobile vectors from every side.  And in the midst of the cultural re-engineering, yes, there are profits to be made - from m-pesa and banking transactions all the way to gaming.

This from e-marketer, cited by, yep, the ever-brilliant Emily Turrettini @ textually:

The mobile video games market is growing faster than the markets for consoles and handheld video games, according to Understanding & Solutions. Only online games are growing at a faster clip.

“Global revenues from mobile gaming are pegged at $3.6 billion this year,” said David Rouse, analyst at Understanding & Solutions. "We predict this figure to rise to $6 billion by 2011."

The company also said that subscription-based and ad-funded mobile games were growing. Mr. Rouse said that an increasing number of games let players buy additional levels or virtual goods using microtransactions.

Pay per download is still the main money maker for mobile game publishers and distributors.

Get going or get left behind.

 

 

nGO Mobile

Reviewing entries for the nGOmobile competition - golly, there's a lot of smart hardworking people trying to make a difference.  This is going to be tough.

Al Qaeda goes viral mobile video...how about you?

"Video messages of al-Qaeda leaders Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahri can now be downloaded to cellphones, the terror network announced as part of its attempts to extend its influence, reports USA Today.

The announcement was posted late Friday by al-Qaeda's media wing, al-Sahab, on websites commonly used by Islamic militants. As of Saturday, eight previously recorded videos were made available including a recent tribute to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the former al-Qaeda in Iraq leader killed by U.S. forces in Iraq in June 2006.

In a written message introducing the new cellphone videos, al-Zawahri, al-Qaeda's No. 2 figure, asked followers to spread the terror group's messages. "I asked God for the men of jihadi media to spread the message of Islam and monotheism to the world and spread real awareness to the people of the nations," al-Zawahri said.

Videos playable on cellphones are increasingly popular in the Middle East. The files are transferred from phone to phone using Bluetooth or infrared wireless technology."

from Emily @ textually.org

Anti-Social Media...

When does social media become ant-social?  The Finnish prime minister ended a relationship via SMS, and according to the Washington Post, 11% of Americans say breaking up by text message is ok.  In Muslim marriage, the union can be dissolved simply by saying "I divorce you", and the question currently being argued in courts from Malaysia to Egypt is whether SMS text messaging counts.  The Malaysia Sun had this to say:

"Muslim authorities in Dubai, acknowledging the synergy of technology and tradition, Thursday confirmed that a Muslim divorce can be carried out via a mobile phone text message or SMS.  The country's Grand Mufti, Ahmed al-Haddad, who issued a fatwa on the subject, noted: 'Islamic clerics disagreed over the way divorce can be written...divorce through this modern way is not different from using a pen and a paper...in Islam, if a husband seriously and verbally tells his wife 'you are divorced', they should be separated even without a formal certification of divorce'."

Standard messaging fees apply, one would assume.

A question for cultural anthropologists:  where are we now on the spectrum of digitally enabled breakups?  Perhaps this is one for the folks over at OK Cupid to answer.  Sam?

thank you textually.org!