Back in October 2008, I wrote a post about charitable organizations embracing donations via text message to help meet their end of year fundraising goals. This week the island nation of Haiti suffered a devastating earthquake and two high profile charities, the Red Cross and Yele (founded by Haitian musician Wyclef Jean), urged those wishing to send aid to make a donation not via check, email, or even online donations, instead they asked for one simple item – a text message.
By text messaging a special code to the Red Cross or Yele you could make a donation to relief efforts in Haiti with the push of just a few keys on your phone. Last week I wrote about some of the exciting mobile technologies unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas and its clear that the mobile trend is not just for tech, it has spread to non-profit.
The Red Cross text message donations are being managed by a company called mGive. mGive’s chief executive, Tony Aiello, told Jenna Wortham of the New York Times, “Catastrophic fund-raising is different from the everyday fund-raising that we help facilitate. This is a huge tragedy, and we simply hope to help provide relief. . . Mobile giving is currently outpacing the early days of online giving.”
How popular is the donation method exactly?
In an interview with MSNBC’s Suzanne Choney, Jeffrey Nelson, a spokesman for Verizon Wireless said, “All mobile texters in the United States have contributed $4 million to the Red Cross Haiti earthquake relief effort, the largest outpouring of charitable support by texting in history — by far.”
Nelson went on to say, “Previous donating-via-text message efforts raised $400,000 after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and $200,000 after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami by all wireless customers in the U.S.”
And it doesn’t end there. To get out the word about donating via text, concerned individuals posted the text message codes on a plethora of social networks, making the plea viral.
Jennifer Van Grove of Mashable wrote a post today praising the Red Cross’ decision to use mobile and social media to raise awareness and more importantly, to raise funds. Van Grove said, “The Red Cross’s involvement in the relief effort is to be commended. Not only did it immediately set up the simplest donation method possible, but its social media presence and outreach, when combined with the State Department’s involvement, has turned this into a viral funding initiative, topping Twitter trends and inspiring action.”
This week it has become clear the most effective method of raising funds is to reach people where they are: on their phones and on social networks. When launching a fundraising campaign, in the wake of a crisis or otherwise, fundraisers should consider that their staring point is in fact mobile.
Back in April, I had written about an Israeli solder that was put in jail for posting sensitive images and/or information on their Facebook profile. Apparently, the army has continued to monitor the social network pretty closely.
Another young Israeli has gotten into trouble for evading the army, which was discovered when someone looked at her Facebook profile. According to Jewish & Israel News, Israel’s army is using Facebook to track down draft dodgers:
The army visited the Facebook account of a teenager who was dismissed from army service after declaring she was religious despite attending a secular school, and discovered that she did not lead a religious lifestyle…Pictures on her Facebook account showed that she did not dress in a style acceptable to the religious community and that she attended parties on Shabbat. The army has since drafted her.
This case is justanotherexample of why people need to be careful about what they put online. In fact just to be safe, assume everything you post can and will be seen by everyone. That would sure help avoid one of these messes.
The ratings for the Beijing Olympics are way up over Athens. The Los Angeles Times reports that NBC’s 12-day average prime-time viewership is 29.3 million for Beijing, up from 26.1 million in Athens. With so many people watching the likes of beach volleyball champs Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh, Gymnastics studs Nastia Liukin and Shawn Johnson, and the dominating swimming performance by Michael Phelps, it’s no wonder why the Olympics are so popular.
However, if there is one complaint about the coverage, it’s that NBC hasn’t aired enough live events – something ESPN is hoping to capitalize on.
John Skipper, ESPN’s executive vice president for content says that “[ESPN’s] DNA is different than theirs [NBC]. We serve sports fans. It’s hard in our culture to fathom tape-delaying in the same way they have. I’m not suggesting it wasn’t the smart thing for them to do, but it’s not our culture…We would never put an event on tape delay. When we put ‘live’ on the screen, we mean ‘live right now.’ We don’t mean live three hours ago.”
While I was watching the Olympics last night, I noticed that the men’s 200 meter run was not shown live, but an interview with Shawn Johnson (about her Gold medal high beam performance) was. I understand how popular Johnson is in these Olympics games, but the 200m was a really exciting race and the U.S. finished in 2nd and 3rd. Bolt also broke Michael Johnson’s world record time, and the athletes that originally placed 2nd and 3rd in the race (one from the U.S.) ended up being disqualified for stepping on the line. How was this not live?
NBC has made big news with extended online video, including 2,200 hours of live coverage, thanks to Microsoft’s Silverlight. However, the reality is that ESPN has a valid point – we want to watch these sports live, not hear about the results online then watch the event afterwards, already knowing the results. That’s part of the beauty of sports – the excitement that no one knows what will happen next.
Noel Hidalgo was walking around Tiananmen Square in China on Saturday when he came across a free-Tibet protest. He decided to Twittertheprotest, and also broadcast it live over Qik.
It turned out that the live broadcast ended up being his ticket home.
Chinese authorities deported Hidalgo as a result of the live video streaming, sending him back to the United States. So while it has been reported that many Chinese have been very eager to please visitors during the Olympic Games, it turns out that anything involving Tibet is crossing the line.
As the Olympic Games kickoff tomorrow in Beijing, the best athletes around the world will be competing for gold, silver, and bronze medals in their respective events.
While you’re on the couch, no doubt witnessing some of the greatest athletic performances of the year, or ever, you’ll also be watching some other competitions coming straight into your living room.
Presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain will be competing for your vote – and spending a combine $11 million in the process. NBC sure is lucky that the Olympics fall during the same time as campaign season!
Meanwhile, Olympic sponsors such as Coca-Cola, Adidas, and McDonalds (powering Olympic athletes? Suuuuuure) are giddy at the sight of having an attentive television audience and the ability to market their products to Asia. These types of ‘global sponsors’ have paid an average of $72 million each, but one study found that only 15 percent of 1,500 Chinese city dwellers could name at least two of the 12 global sponsors.
So while you’re watching some of the world’s greatest athletes over the next couple weeks, try not to think about the companies and politicians competing for your money and votes – just enjoy the moments that the summer Olympics bring us ever 4 years.
Even while the Olympic Games will be taking place on the other side of the world, viewers will now be able to watch whatever events they want, thanks to some cool new technology.
No, not YouTube – that’s only available to countries that don’t have access to NBC and their long line of advertisers.
Instead, NBC’s Olympics Web site will feature 2,200 hours of live coverage, thanks to Microsoft’s Silverlight, their equivalent of Flash (However, this will only be available to viewers in the U.S.).
Thanks to this technology, viewers will have the ability to:
- See multiple camera angles & rewind video.
- Watch whatever sport they want whenever they want.
- See 3,000 hours of ‘on-demand encores of full events and highlights’.
- Switch between up to 4 live streams.
- See the standard world feed that is sent to all broadcasters, with no TV commentators.
- Access statistics, biographies and other information.
This enhanced Olympics viewing experience will be great for people looking to catch certain events that aren’t always on TV, especially as NBC aims to stick countless hours of competition into nicely organized time slots during their prime time hours.
With the Olympics starting on Friday, there is so much to look forward to. I can’t wait to see the track & field events – especially the 1500 and 5000 meter races. Volleyball is always exciting to watch, and who doesn’t want to see Michael Phelps’s attempt for eight gold medals? However, what most people don’t realize that until this year, not everyone had access to this worldwide event.
Thanks to the popular video site, for the first time ever the Olympic Games will reach 77 territories that aren’t officially covered by Olympic sponsors, including South Korea, India and Nigeria, according to The Wall Street Journal.
YouTube will be streaming about three hours a day of exclusive content from the Olympics on a dedicated channel during the Games. However, viewers from outside those 77 territories will be blocked from the channel because of broadcast rights.
While it’s hard to believe that the Olympics weren’t available around the world before 2008, it’s pretty funny to think that the first year they will be available worldwide (via the internet) will be the same year the Olympics are taking place in Beijing – where open internet access has become such a hot issue.
It was reported a while ago that China was going to allow uncensored internet during the Olympics in Beijing next month. Well, apparently that’s not quite true anymore.
The New York Times reports that “since the Olympic Village press center opened on Friday, reporters have been unable to access scores of Web pages — among them those that discuss Tibetan issues, Taiwanese independence, the violent crackdown on the protests in Tiananmen Square and the Web sites of Amnesty International, the BBC’s Chinese-language news, Radio Free Asia and several Hong Kong newspapers known for their freewheeling political discourse.”
For reporters covering the games, it is important that they have access to the internet to research, communicate, and file their stories. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) had negotiated with China to provide unregulated internet access, but China’s concern for their national security, particularly relating to Tibet, has trumped their one-time promise that there would be an open access for all.
In a world where some people are connected to the internet 24/7 via their cell phones or other devices, China’s decision to block certain sites and information from thousands of foreign reporters and their own citizens seems like quite a bold move.
What’s your take? Should countries have the right block certain sites that they believe are dangerous for their national security?
UPDATE (8/1)
The Associated Press is reporting that some sites have been unblocked at the main press center & media venues on Friday, after the IOC met with some Chinese officials.
Nicholas Negroponte took the stage with David Kirkpatrick at Fortune Brainstorm: TECH to address the crowd on where the One Laptop per Child project currently stands earlier this morning. Some excerpts below:
DK: Happy to have you on stage, along with your XO.
You have transformed a new way to get technology into the hands of kids across the world. However, you’ve often talked about goals that haven’t been achieved. How do you describe the state of OLPC?
NN: You need a certain amount of hype. Some of it was that. We had to change our targets as we began to see which countries really were going to put a full effort behind one laptop for every child in their country. Peru is going to do a million this year. If I was running a company that would be pretty good to go from $0-$200 million (if they were paying for each computer) in one market – in one year.
DK: Do you sometimes wish that you had made it a business and not a non-profit philanthropy effort?
NN:Never. What the non-profit does is create the mission for us. We don’t look at the developing world as a market, we look at it as a mission. When I go to each head of state they know that I am talking with them about a mission to transform education in their countries and not giving them a sales’ speech. It also allows us to attract the top talent that want to be part of a true mission, without even thinking about earning a salary.
DK: So the XO that you have with you does something different then the XO’s in the developing world right now?
NN:Yes, this is a dual-boot XO that runs both Windows and Linux (Negroponte boots in Windows for the crowd).
NN: We will kick-off a global “Give One, Get One” program within the next few months.
Disclosure: One Laptop per Child is a client of the Racepoint Group.
With the U.S. Olympic Trials for track and swimming now complete, it’s a good time to look at how the Olympic Games are affecting China. Besides the protests surrounding the conflict with Tibet and the massive tourism increase that China will see from the Olympics, some Chinese citizens will also be out of work for a couple months.
According to The New York Times, the city of Tianjin (located about 70 miles east of Beijing) has ordered 40 factories to suspend some operations for two months in order to improve the air quality during the Olympics.
The details around these closings are very unclear, and don’t address whether or not these workers will still be compensated for the time their factories are closed. In either case, I’d be shocked if China was prepared for everything that has happened so far as a result of hosting the Olympics, and wouldn’t be surprised if there’s many Chinese leaders that would have preferred to avoid this altogether.
2. Internet privacy has become an issue and China has had to ensure the Olympic Committee that it would allow all athletes and media to have full internet access during the games.
4. Some of China’s factories have to close down in order to decrease the pollution around the Olympic sites. The pollution is so bad that some countries are worried about bringing their athletes to Beijing too far in advance of their events.
Can you imagine running a marathon in that city with that much pollution? What’s your take on China as the Olympics quickly approach?
