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^)
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?
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.
January 8, 2007 - 0 Comment(s)
Each year, Tom McBride and Ron Nief from Beloit College in Wisconsin release the Beloit College Mindset List. This list is not only interesting and informative, but it also provides a valuable look at “the cultural touchstones that have shaped the lives of today’s first-year students.�?
If you haven’t seen the 2006 list yet, I encourage you to take a few minutes and have a look. McBride summarizes the characteristics of this year’s incoming class as:
“a generation that has always been ‘connected’ and is used to things happening in ‘real time,’ like live satellite coverage of revolutions and wars, instant messaging and movies on demand. They expect solutions for every problem, from baldness to diseased organs. To the chagrin of teachers and parents, they’ve developed their own generational means of communication.�?
This description, and a review of the list, illustrates the dramatic changes in the ways in which students communicate. Most notably:
#8. They are wireless, yet always connected.
# 20. Text messaging is their email.
This certainly isn’t the first time we’ve read about the rise of connectivity and text messaging—evidence of this seems to be everywhere these days. What the findings do provide is a “reality check�? –- each year, students gets more connected and more mobile, and we better deal with it.
As the trend continues, it’ll be very interesting to see how much of their lives (academic and social) get integrated into their mobile lifestyles. One thing’s for sure – 2007 is going to be interesting!
