mobile

The Pew Internet Project has a new report out about the usage of smart phones by demographics and there are a few interesting things to point out.

According to the data about possession of a smartphone - 83% have some kind of cell phone. From those with cell phoes, 42% reported owning smartphones. Total that's 35% of all adults surveyed. The highest rate of smartphone ownership among demographics is ... as you would guess - those under 45 years old.

Interesting factoid: 28% of US smartphone users use their phone as their primary Internet connection. I wonder if this has anything to do with an increase in availability for mobile but not for high speed broadband access in rural areas. This could also have something to do with users who are less economically able to afford both mobile and broadband and would prefer to use both just on their phones.

"Smartphone owners under the age of 30, non-white smartphone users, and smartphone owners with relatively low income and education levels are particularly likely to say that they mostly go online using their phone."

Users also prefer Android phones over iPhone though iPhone users are beginning to slowly move up.

Lots of new stuff in today's Quick Hits - from social media strategies, to training programs and service legislation:

• Yesterday the Washington Post threw-down the gauntlet, claiming that Facebook Causes was a disappointment because it had failed to open the spigot of small dollar donations hoped for by nonprofits. Allison Fine immediately rose to the defense of the Causes Application, noting that the Washington Post piece misses the true nature of fundraising on the web, and the true purpose and value of Causes to non profits.
• Campus Progress notes that 1/3 of all unemployed Americans and call for the creation of a New Deal for Young Workers.
• USA Today notes that public universities are about to see hefty tuition hikes.
• At the Politics Online Conference, Nancy Scola reports on an interesting conversation about how mobile activism differs from traditional online activism.
• Over at his other blog, FM contributor Kevin Bondelli explains how the Young Democrats rapidly grew their membership on Facebook in the last month.
• PolitiCorps, the political boot camp operated by the Bus Project, is accepting applications for their summer program.
• James Carville is fully on the youth bandwagon. In his new book, he notes that the GOP has become the Grand OLD Party.
• Peter Levine reports that the size of Americorps is about to triple. He's also got some very interesting thoughts on how Obama has developed a deeper than usual conception of service.
• On a related note, the Huffington Post reports on service as a new kind of patriotism.

The Young Democrats are starting to push their text message reminder program. As I've noted multiple times this week, these text reminders can boost turnout by 4.6 percentage points on election day.

Dear Michael,

Do you have a million things to do before Election Day? Well, that makes two of us! We're all hard at work, going door to door and street teaming to get young voters to the polls, and we know you have a bunch of things on your plate as well. There are only a few days left and between school or work, trying to sneak in some laundry or a world series game, and making sure we elect Democrats, we're all very busy people.

Sometimes we even forget to set time aside to vote -- us! The Activists! And even more often, we forget to remind all of our friends and family to vote as we narrowly focus on our campaign's targets - forgetting how much of an impact we can have on those closest to us.

The Young Voter Revolution has a solution! We'll send you a text message on Election Day to remind you to get out to the polls. And don't worry, we didn't forget about your friends and family either; you can send them the info they need to get their text message reminders too.

So sign up by visiting
www.youngvoterrevolution.com/mobile

Please pass the above link on to your YD chapter, your email friends, to your Facebook and MySpace friends, to your coworkers, and to your family. Just get your friends and family to sign up for their reminders, and we'll do the rest - that's one thing you can check off your list!

Got your cell phone in your hand? You can also text VOTEDEM to 35328 to pledge to vote for Democrats via phone and sign up for our reminders.

So go back to your volunteering, your laundry, to studying, to work, or to that world series game - and let us worry about the rest!

Don't let up until we cross that finish line,

Tony Cani
YDA National Political Director

Yesterday I got an email about a new use of technology in the Presidential race - Jott the Vote. Essentially, Jott the Vote is a non-partisan, third party tool that allows voters to send a message to any of the Presidential campaigns via phone. Users dial a toll free number and can leave a voicemail of up to 30 seconds for selected candidates. That candidate's campaign will then receive both audio and transcribed copies of the message via email.

On their website, Jott aggregates these messages, providing a real time look at which candidates voters are talking to, and how many people have "jotted" a specific candidate (at the time of this writing, Ron Paul was the "most jotted" candidate with a paltrey 32 Jotts). A digg-like functionality allows users to "second" someone else's message, though it's unclear whether campaigns are informed of this secondary support, or if it even makes a difference in how the Jott website displays content. Campaigns and supporters are offered the option of tracking their buzz via widgets (pictured right) that aggregate the latest voice mails.

While this is a neat little application, and everything is extremely well executed, it's unclear to me how this is anything more than a novelty in the 2008 primary campaign. While it is interesting that the tool enables voters to contact the presidential campaigns, without buy-in from the campaigns to do anything with those messages, it's hard to see any real advantage beyond making it slightly easier to contact a campaign that receives so much email per day that yours is bound to be ignored (it's not even clear who in the campaign receives these emails - a generic address in the national office?). In the end, users would probably be better off expressing their concerns over the phone to someone in a local office.

The widgets are also a very interesting idea, but it's unclear who would use them and why. Jott does not censor the messages users send, and eventually this tool could be used to express dissatisfaction with a candidate's position - making it distinctly less attractive of a tool for both supporters of a candidate or a campaign that is exercising tight message control.

In the end, Jott the Vote seems to be an application screaming for more local applications. Calling elected officials to discuss an issue or to ask them to change their vote on a piece of legislation can be an intimidating act. That intimidation factor probably keeps thousands of would-be-activists from taking action on any number of issues. Jott the Vote's one-stop-shopping, and non-confrontational format could significantly lower that type of psychological barrier to participation. And Congressmen and state level politicians would surely be more susceptible to these types of voter contacts than presidential campaigns. Overall, Jott the Vote is a good idea, but the focus needs a little fine-tuning.