April 17, 2008 - 0 Comment(s)
We just released a case study with University of San Diego Toreros. 35% increase in student attendance?! You go Toreros!
You can see the case study by clicking here.
January 1, 2008 - 0 Comment(s)
Happy New Year everyone. What better way to start the new year than friends, family, football and a little dose of reality? Let me explain…
Most people in education understand or are starting to understand the fact that young people (you know, students) are using email less and less all the time. Everybody realizes that students prefer text messaging to email by a wide margin. No argument there, right? What…there are still a few disbelievers? Without going into great detail about this, let me toss some data at you…
A recent study, “Teens and Social Media”, conducted by the Pew Internet & American Life Project states:
“Despite the power that email holds among adults as a major mode of personal and professional communication, it is not a particularly important part of the communication arsenal of today’s teens. Only 14% of all teens report sending emails to their friends every day, making it the least popular form of daily social communication on the list we queried.”
Note that there are lots of other studies and surveys that show the same findings, but I think this is enough for the moment. Now that we’re all on the same page about the decline of email and the meteoric rise of text messaging, let’s turn our attention to a related topic - social networks. We all know social networks are incredibly popular, but I’ve had some discussions recently that are a bit troubling. They’ve gone something like this:
Me: It’s amazing how seldom students use email these days.
Friend: Yes, it really is amazing. Now, students just use Facebook and MySpace to talk with each other.
Me: Well, they do spend a lot of “time” on social networking sites like Facebook, but that’s still not the main way they communicate. If they’ve got a mobile phone, that’s their #1 way to communicate. It’s their lifeline.
Friend: No way…it’s all about Facebook and MySpace. MySpace and Facebook.
Me: Well, “time on site” doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the way they communicate with each other, so that’s not completely accurate
Friend: Uh, yes it is.
Me: Uh, no it’s not.
You get the picture…
Fortunately, we can return to our trusty data from the same Pew study which rank ordered teen daily social communication choices (i.e., the most popular methods of communicating with friends every day). For teens that use the internet and have mobile phones, the order, form most used/popular to least is…
1. Cell phone (talking)
2. Landline (talking)
3. Texting (text messaging)
4. Instant Messaging
5. Face to face
6. Social Networks
7. Email
Like my friend above, many people (including people at schools) I talk with believe that students use Facebook as their primary means of communication, and that if you want to reach them, you have to use Facebook. This study shows otherwise. The fact is, the mobile phone is the way students communicate….period. Although students spend a lot of time on Facebook and other social networking sites, they USE their mobile phone and send text messages more frequently to communicate. An analogy - teens living with their parents. They may spend a lot of time at home, but are they interacting and communicating with their parents all that time? Probably not. More likely they’re in their rooms, doors shut, texting, listening to music, etc. It’s the same with social networks versus mobile phones.
So, our beginning of the year reality check - if you really want to communicate with students, you can’t just go to where they hang out and expect to connect with them. If you want to communicate with them, use the tools they use everyday to communicate. Send a text! Better yet, send lots of text messages using clearTXT. Happy New Year. 8^)
December 13, 2007 - 0 Comment(s)
This is posted on our company blog also, but I wanted to mention it again here. We’re really excited to be one of only 40 companies selected to present at the Southeast Venture Conference. There are some great companies presenting as well as some incredible keynote speakers, such as John Sculley (Apple and Pepsi), Jim Steele (Salesforce.com), Frank Bonsal (NEA), and many others.
The full press release is available here.
SEVC website is here.
November 14, 2007 - 0 Comment(s)
A couple of weeks ago I made my way to the west coast and sat down with prolific video blogger, Robert Scoble. We had a great time talking about clearTXT, educational technology, and technology in general. You can see the interview below. We’ll also have a briefer version online soon. Enjoy.
November 10, 2007 - 0 Comment(s)
Many people have asked me when the Scoble interview is going to air. I have it on good authority (a text message from Robert) that it will air this coming week (the week of the 11th). Once it’s live I’ll post it here.
Thanks to everyone for the interest and support. Now let’s hope it’s not “too” bad. ;^)
October 24, 2007 - 0 Comment(s)
I was just reviewing some of the CTIA mobile stats, and the continued growth in mobile is amazing. Have a look at some of these numbers (note that I added these to the mobecom.org website as well)…
1. Wireless Subscribers as of June 2007 = 243.4 million US subscribers
2. Wireless Penetration = More than 81% of total US households
3. Monthly SMS Messages = 28.8 billion SMS messages just in June of 2007
4. Wireless-Only Households = 12.8% of US households
5. Jobs = More than 257,000 direct carrier jobs
6. Annual Wireless Carrier Payroll = More than $13 billion in direct carrier wages
7. Annualized Total Wireless Revenue = $134.7 billion, as of June, 2007
8. Annualized Wireless Data Revenue = $19.2 billion as of June, 2007
9. Minutes of Use = Customers used 1.95 Trillion minutes in first 6 months of 2007
I remember people being amazed at the SMS numbers last year, showing that SMS growth increased from roughly 6 Billion messages per month to 12.8 Billion. To see that number more than double once again is just incredible…and it’s not stopping there. Any guesses at what the number will be next year…25 Billion…30 Billion…more?
October 16, 2007 - 0 Comment(s)
I had a great time meeting with Robert Scoble today. In case you’re not familiar with Robert, he’s a prolific blogger (online, video), author, and more…plus a really good guy. You can check out his show (the Scoble Show) on Pod Tech (www.podtech.net).
After our interview he put a post on his blog that includes a preview of their new studio…along with a quick hello from your’s truly. He shot this using his phone, then instantly uploaded it to Kyte.tv for the entire world to see. Amazing! It’s a good time to alive. You can check it out here.
August 15, 2007 - 0 Comment(s)
clearTXT is growing and we’re looking for some great people to join our team. Are you an entrepreneurial, business oriented, and motivated superstar (or superstar-to-be) who is looking for a long-term fit with a dynamic, high growth company? If so, you might be exactly the person we’re looking for.
Current positions include Sales Associate, Account Manager, Support Representative, and Engineer. To receive more information or send a resume, email us at HR@clearTXT.com
July 9, 2007 - 0 Comment(s)
We’re getting ready to head up to Boston for the BbWorld ‘07 Users Conference. Not only are we exhibiting (booth #209), but we’re also partnering with Blackboard to provide mobile conference notifications and updates (as mentioned in a previous post). If you haven’t signed up yet, you can sign up here
If you going to the conference, please drop by our booth to say hi and meet the team. And just for being a loyal reader of the CEO blog, if you mention reading this post, we’ll give you one of our world famous clearTXT T-Shirts!. See you there.
April 16, 2007 - 0 Comment(s)
In case you missed the announcement on the company blog, clearTXT will be Blackboard’s exclusive partner and provider of mobile alerts for Bb Word ’07 in July. This is the best way for attendees to get reminders when presentations are getting ready to start, when schedule or room changes occur, and everything else happening at the conference.
We’re really excited to provide the service for a second time, and also that Blackboard is putting some muscle behind the service this year. The first time we offered the service was the 2005 Bb User Conference in Baltimore, MD. Blackboard was excited about us providing the service, but left most of the marketing and promotion up to us. We had a lot of people sign up, but Blackboard’s marketing efforts will probably result in many more subscribers this year. Blackboard’s a great partner and certainly knows how to market, so this should be a great event.
We received a lot of feedback in 2005, almost all of it positive. In general, people liked the reminders and the schedule updates the most. Reminders were sent to people 5 minutes prior to events starting with the event information, such as room location, title of the event, etc. With so much happening during the conference it’s easy to get distracted and lose track of time. The reminders ensured that people didn’t miss the events they were most interested in attending.
The schedule changes have obvious value - you certainly want to know if a presentation you’re on your way to see has been moved to a different location, the time has changed, etc. This year, we hope to add some other types of messages and make this a truly valuable service to attendees.
We’ll have more information, as well as the signup page, available soon. I hope everyone will sign up.
February 3, 2007 - 0 Comment(s)
The Wireless Health Case Report on the 101 medical uses of cell phones includes some really interesting ideas about technological advancements in healthcare. Some of the ideas are pretty … well … out there. Other ideas not only look realistic, but strangely similar to things clearTXT (and others) already address in the education space.
Here’s a quick list…
10.1 Appointment Reminders (SMS)
10.2 Patient Support (SMS)
10.3 Medication Reminders (SMS)
10.4 Appointment Booking
10.5 Medical Data On SIM Card
10.6 Patient Information For Relatives
10.7 Peer Support For Patients
10.8 Post Cardiac Surgery Support
10.9 Accessing Patient Records
10.10 Access To Dietary Information
Full report is available here
Will robots become the doctor’s of the future? I don’t know, but cell phones becoming a part of almost every aspect of life sure seems like a good bet!
December 21, 2006 - 0 Comment(s)
I feel very lucky to work with such quality people here at clearTXT. Not only do we have great people working at clearTXT, we’re also fortunate to have incredible advisors. Our advisors provide invaluable insights, guidance, and direction for many different aspects of the company. clearTXT get better all the time because of the collective efforts of all these people.
Recently, we decided to expand our list of advisors and created the clearTXT Product Advisory Board. This board will help guide the development of clearTXT products and services, and offer an in-depth perspective into the evolving needs of the Education community. Board members will share their ideas and experiences with other members and our product development team to ensure that our solutions continue to align with the diverse (and changing) needs of all campus community members.
I would like to take a moment to welcome our first board members, The University of Cincinnati and Seton Hall University. As you can tell from the description above, joining the advisory board is no small deal – by joining, these schools are demonstrating their strong commitments to clearTXT, both today and in the future. We are thrilled to have these schools as our initial members and look forward to working together.
