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 28, 2007 - 0 Comment(s)
For the last couple of years I’ve heard many people say (and read in many articles) that 120 characters is too limited a space to say anything meaningful. In most cases, people are talking/writing about the limits of 120 characters in relation to an emergency situations - when critical information needs to be conveyed.
I agree that 120 characters is limited, but I think many people don’t really know what 120 characters “looks” like. Let’s see a few example…all of these are no more than 120 characters…
“Some people say that 120 characters is too small a space to say anything meaningful. I disagree. this is 120 characters.”
“All classes canceled today. We’ll resume our normal schedule tomorrow. For further info, log on to the school website.”
“Security alert. Shots fired on East Campus. Please stay in your current location and lock all doors. More info shortly.”
As you can see, you can actually get a decent amount of information across in 120 characters. And as more organizations increase their baseline limit to 140 characters, there’s even more space.
Of course I wish that SMS wasn’t quite so limited (personally, I’d like to see about a 300 character limit), but I think there’s more room for information in that space than people acknowledge. It’s also important to remember that the limit is a benefit - it’s one of the reasons SMS is so fast and is definitely one of the aspects that makes it so appealing to so many people (young people in particular). It forces sender to get to the point immediately and not send unnecessary information. And who says you (read “schools”) can only send one message? If the messages are important and relevant, are people going to be upset about receiving two messages? Given the volume of messages college students send and receive every day, I hardly think this is a problem.
Is 120 characters limiting? Yes. Is it “too” limiting? I don’t think so. After all, do you want all your messages to be as long as this post?
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)
Here’s a sneak peek at my interview with Robert Scoble and gives you a glimpse of the brand new PodTech studio - still int he works.
It sure is a good thing I don’t have to make my living in front of the camera….yikes!
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.
October 4, 2007 - 0 Comment(s)
This is a really interesting documentary-style video about the expansion of mobile within education in the UK. Definitely worth 25 minutes
