Stories, software and strategies to help nonprofits do the social web
But--and this is important--Apple will not be able to take Google on in the areas of connectivity and cloud computing as long as they insist on a closed platform. Not because Google's FroYo features can't be implemented on a closed platform, but because it just wouldn't occur to you to do so. Furthermore, you can only go so far telling customers that you know what's best for them.... Apple is insisting on playing the game in a way that they can only lose. via radar.oreilly.com O'Reilly's Mike Loukides on how...
May, 24 2010 • 0 Comments • 0 Faves
Apple has trained us to look for apps and use apps, not web sites. The iPad just furthers this behavior that Apple is training in us. I don’t need to open a browser anymore to get to my favorite content, my social networks, my maps and weather, etc. The disintermediation between Google/search and customers has been usurped (or soon will be) by Apple. Via apps, music, movies, and books, Apple now owns the customer “search” relationship. The app store is a discovery tool. Search is not. Search is a research tool...
April, 7 2010 • 1 Comment • 0 Faves
On a planet with around 6.8 billion people, we're likely to see 5 billion cell phone subscriptions this year. Reaching 4.6 billion at the end of 2009, the number of cell phone subscriptions across the globe will hit 5 billion sometime in 2010, according to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). The explosion in cell phone use has been driven not only by developed countries, but by developing nations hungry for services like mobile banking and health care. via reviews.cnet.com John Gruber points...
February, 18 2010 • 0 Comments • 0 Faves
January, 7 2010 • 0 Comments • 0 Faves
Our first module, Savings & Credit, will be available within the next three to five months. It will allow users to issue credit, hold client savings and record client credit histories. By linking individual profiles to their respective phone numbers, Savings & Credit will automatically track loan dispersals and adjust outstanding balances as mobile payments are received. Any mobile payment in excess of an outstanding balance will be attached to the appropriate profile in the form of mobile savings, which an...
October, 10 2009 • 2 Comments • 0 Faves
In addition to the winning project, FrontlineSMS: Medic, the NetSquared Mobile Challenge had several projects that use FrontlineSMS software:FrontlineSMS Alerts and IJ Central were two other finalists. Several more were centered around SMSmessaging, though it was not clear if FrontlineSMS was the software they intended to use. So what is this FrontlineSMS stuff, exactly?FrontlineSMS software is a SMS switchboard made for the needs of NGOs. By leveraging basic tools already available to most NGOs — computers...
June, 1 2009 • 0 Comments • 0 Faves
What’s a multi-modal application? One that does phone, web, and perhaps Twitter, etc. One example is TwitterVoteReport, a Rails application that collected reports of waiting time at the polls for the 2008 US election. Produced in 3 weeks by Dave Troy. Input came from telephone, Twitter, SMS. Here’s how Dave did it: Open-source Software to do Voice Adhearsion Ruby library for easing call handling. Provides a domain language for doing voice in Ruby Asterisk actually talks to the phone system Other Options...
May, 26 2009 • 0 Comments • 0 Faves
Startup thinking for the social sector. Code to help nonprofits do the social web. Plus photography.
(And reading aloud.)
More about Eric Johnson.
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