Drew Cogbill | Thesis Blog

My time at Parsons and thesis are finished, so this blog will now exist purely as an archive.

Pigeon and my work in mobile phone applications continues to live on, and I plan on launching a new blog soon.  In the meanwhile, I’m posting to twitter.

Articles

• Banks, Ken. “Anthropology’s Technology-driven Renaissance.” PC World, 17 July 2008, http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/148564/anthropologys_technologydriven_ renaissance.html.
• Bloch, Matthew, Shan Carter, and Robert Gebeloff. “Immigration and Jobs: Where U.S. Workers Come From.” The New York Times, 7 April 2009. http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/04/07/us/20090407-immigration-occupation.html#view=all.
• Brown, Charlie. “Open Sourcing Social Solutions.” innovations (summer 2007): 125-136.
• Buley, Taylor. “Facing Up To Facebook’s Value.” Forbes.com, 07 April 2009. http://www.forbes.com/2009/04/06/facebook-advertising-rates-technology-internet-facebook.html.
• Cohen, Noam. “The Freedoms that Technologies Help Bring.” The New York Times, December 7, 2008. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/08/technology/personaltech/08link.html.
• Colvin, Jill. “You’ve Got Voice Mail, but Do You Care?” The New York Times, 1 April 2009. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/02/fashion/02voicemail.html?_r=4.
• Eagle, Nathan. “Behavioral Inference Across Cultures: Using Telephones as a Cultural Lens.” IEEE Intelligent Systems 23, no. 4: (2008): 62-64.
• Galperin, Hernán and Judith Mariscal. “Poverty and Mobile Telephony in Latin America and the Caribbean.” PDF, DIRSI, November 2007, http://www.dirsi.net/files/regional/REGIONAL_FINAL_english.pdf.
• Hay, Timothy. “VoIP Start-Ups Scramble To Find Niche.” The Wall Street Journal, 4 March 2009. http://blogs.wsj.com/venturecapital/2009/03/04/voip-start-ups-scramble-to-find-niche/.
• Hoefer, Micheal, Nancy Rytina, and Bryan C. Baker. “Estimates of the Unauthorized Immigrant Population Residing in the United States: Januaray 2008. Department of Homeland Security Department of Immigration Statistics, February 2009. http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/statistics/publications/ois_ill_pe_2008.pdf.
• Honicky, R.J, Omar Bakr, Micheal Demmer, and Eric Brewer. “A message oriented phone system for low  cost connectivity.” Working paper, CS Berkeley / Intel Research. http://reality.media.mit.edu/pdfs/Honicky.pdf.
• Jordans, Frank. “World’s Poor Drive Growth in Global Cell Phone Use.” Wireless Week, 02 March 2009. http://www.wirelessweek.com/article.aspx?id=166612.
• Kim, Ryan. “Cell phone firms’ dream demographic: Latinos.” SFGate, 4 May 2008. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/05/03/BULL10CIL1.DTL.
  
• Manjoo, Farhad. “Do You Think Bandwidth Grows on Trees?” Slate, 14 April 2009. http://slate.com/id/2216162.
• Mallalieu, Kim. “Pro Poor Mobile Capabilities: Service Offering in Latin America and the Caribbean.” PDF, DIRSI, http://www.dirsi.net/files/finals/070216–mallalieu.pdf.
• “The Meek Shall Inherit the Web.” The Economist, 4 September 2008, print edition, http://www.economist.com/science/tq/displayStory.cfm?source=hptextfeature&story_id=11999307.
• Peña-López, Ismael. “Mobile Communication and Society: Interview with Mireia Fernández-Ardèvol, coauthor.” ICTlogy, Issue #38, November 2006. http://ictlogy.net/review/20061128-mobile-communication-and-society-interview-with-mireia-fernandez-ardevol-coauthor/.
• Perry, Alex. “10 Ideas Changing the World Right Now: Africa, Business Destination.” Time.com.  http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1884779_1884782_1884769,00.html.
• “Recent immigrants driving advanced mobile phone use, both in Europe and in the US.”  putting people first, 4 May 2008, http://www.experientia.com/blog/recent-immigrants-driving-advanced-mobile-phone-use-both-in-europe-and-in-the-us/.
• Rubin, Andy. “The Future of Mobile.” The Official Google Blog. http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/future-of-mobile.html.
• Rytina, Nancy. “Estimates of the Legal Permanent Resident Population in 2007.” Department of Homeland Security Department of Immigration Statistics, Feburary 2009. http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/statistics/publications/lpr_pe_2007.pdf.
• Stone, Brad and Miguel Helft. “In Developing Countries, Web Grows Without Profit.” New York Times, 26 April 2009. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/27/technology/start-ups/27global.html?_r=2.
  
• Timmer, John. “Google puts wallet behind African wireless broadband effort.” ars technical, 10 September 2008, http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080910-google-puts-wallet-behind-african-wireless-broadband-effort.html.
• Timmons, Heather. “Third World Telecom Moves to the Front.” New York Times, 27 May 2008. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/27/business/worldbusiness/27telecom.html?_r=2&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1219519550-iIwBf0eKWR3DTMT8EiZuxg.
• Unwin, Tim. “Shaping effective higher education ICT4D partnerships: challenges and opportunities.”  Paper presented at UK UNESCO Chairs Colloquium on Higher Education and International Development, Nottingham, 17-18 January 2008.
• Verclas, Katrin. “ITU Predicts 4 Billion Mobile Subscriptions at the End of 2008.” MobileActive.org, 26 September 2008.
• “VNL Launches Solar-Powered GSM System for Remote / Rural Areas.” TMCnet.com, 24 July 2008, http://hdvoice.tmcnet.com/news/2008/07/24/3566547.htm.
• Walji, Aleem. “Information Poverty.” The Official Google Blog. http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/10/information-poverty.html.
• — — —. “Why Local Content Matters.” Google Africa Blog. http://google-africa.blogspot.com/2008/11/why-local-content-matters.html.
• Waters, Darren. “Social networks ‘are new e-mail’.” BBC News, 15 March 2009. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7942304.stm.
• Watkins, Kevin. “Human Development Report 2007/2008.” United Nations Development Program, 2007. http://hdr.undp.org/en/media/HDR_20072008_EN_Complete.pdf.
• Zachary, G. Pascal. “Inside Nairobi, the Next Palo Alto?” New York Times, 20 July 2008. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/20/business/worldbusiness/20ping.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin.

Books

• Katz, James, ed. Handbook of Mobile Communication. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2008.
• Manuel Castells. Mobile Communication and Society. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2006.
• Unwin, Tim, ed. ICT4D: Information and Communication Technology for Development. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.

PhD Dissertation

• Burd, Leo. “Technological Initiatives for Social Empowerment: Design Experiments in Technology-Supported Youth Participation and Local Civic Engagement.” PhD. diss., MIT, 2007.

Videos and Presentations

• Brewer, Eric. “Technology For Developing Nations.” Guest lecture at Stanford University’s Human-Computer Interaction Seminar.  Video podcast on iTunesU. http://deimos3.apple.com/WebObjects/Core.woa/Browse/itunes.stanford.edu.1357580459?i=1884055081.
• Chipchase, Jan. “Our Cell Phones, Ourselves.” TED lecture. MP4. http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/190.
• Friedman, Thomas. “The World Is Flat 3.0.” Guest lecture, MIT Open Courseware. Video podcast on ITunesU. http://deimos3.apple.com/WebObjects/Core.woa/Browse/mit.edu.1472692963?i=1575640770.
• Hersman, Erik.  Mobile Phones in Africa. Presentation. http://whiteafrican.com/2008/09/26/if-it-works-in-africa-it-will-work-anywhere/.
• Jenson, Scott. “Why Phones Aren’t Computers.” Guest lecture at Stanford University’s Human-Computer Interaction Seminar (CS 547). Video podcast on iTunesU. http://deimos3.apple.com/WebObjects/Core.woa/Browse/itunes.stanford.edu.1357108180.01432528356.1430871610?i=1397060561.
• Roettgering, Mark. “The Economics of Mobility.” Emerging Communications Conference, March 2009. http://ecommmedia.com/blog/2009/04/video-economics-of-mobility.html.
• Shirky, Clay. Presentation at Web4Dev, 12 Feb 2009.
• Veeraraghavan, Rajesh. Warana Unwired. Presentation slides. http://research.microsoft.com/~rajeshv/Warana Unwired/Warana Unwired.pdf.
• Zuckerman, Ethan. Skype Presentation at Mobile Tech 4 Social Change New York, 21 Feb 2009.

Websites

• Asterisk. http://www.asterisk.org/.
• AT&T. “GoPhone Pay As You Go.” http://www.wireless.att.com/cell-phone-service/cell-phone-plans/pyg-cell-phone-plans.jsp?wtSlotClick=1-0016EU-0-1&WT.svl=calltoaction&_requestid=357847.
• B Corporation. http://www.bcorporation.net/.
• Chipchase, Jan. The Future Perfect. http://www.janchipchase.com/.
• Dial2Do. http://www.dial2do.com/.
• Digital Study Hall, The. http://dsh.cs.washington.edu/.
• Eagle, Nathan.  txteagle. http://txteagle.com/index.html.
• Google Voice. http://www.google.com/voice.
• IDEO. “Human-Centered Design Toolkit.” http://www.ideo.com/work/item/human-centered-design-toolkit/.
• International Telecommunication Union. “ICT Eye.” ICT Statistics broken down by country. http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/ICTEYE/Default.aspx.
• Jott. http://www.jott.com/.
• Jyngle. http://www.jyngle.com/.
• Kiva. http://www.kiva.org/.
• Ledlie, Jonathan. “Mosoko.” http://wiki.nrcc.noklab.com/Mosoko.
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “EPROM - Entrepreneurial Programming and Research on Mobiles.” http://eprom.mit.edu/index.html.
• MobileActive.org. “Mobile Data.” ICT Statistics broken down by country. http://www.mobileactive.org/countries/.
• Open Mind. “The Question Box.” http://www.questionbox.org/.
• Phonevite. http://www.phonevite.com/.
• RadioActive. http://smg.media.mit.edu/projects/Radioactive/.
• Rebtel. http://www.rebtel.com.
• Reliance Global Call. http://www.relianceindiacall.com/web/globalhome.aspx.
• Tatango. http://www.tatango.com/.
• Telemegaphone. http://www.unsworn.org/telemegaphone/index.php.
• Telephone Trottorie. http://mediashed.org/?q=trottarticle.
• Telephone Trottorie. http://mediashed.org/trottoire.
• TextMarks. http://www.textmarks.com/.
• Twitter. http://www.twitter.com/.
• Utterli. http://www.uterli.com/.
• Voxeo. “VoiceXML and CCXML Developer Site.” http://evolution.voxeo.com/.

I complete my MFA in Design and Technolgoy studies a week from tomorrow, and will be graduating a few days after that.  It has been wonderful to work on Pigeon at Parsons.  I’m hoping to launch Pigeon as a full time venture moving forward.  Pigeon will start by focusing on US immigrants and the people that matter to them back in their home countries.  I’m currently exploring running Pigeon as a for-profit that has an eye on social investment (perhaps as a registered B Corp).  We’ll see what happens, but I’m excited for the next step.

The “One Internet Village, Divided” article in today’s NYTimes is about the problems that poplular internet sites (YouTube, Facebook, MySpace) are facing with creating revenue from traffic in emerging markets.

The video site Veho has gone so far as to block users from Africa, Latin America, Asia, and Eastern Europe.  MySpace is creating a default low bandwidth profile for users in India, and Facebook is focusing on member acquisition before worrying about monetizing.  YouTube had been developing localized versions of its service in Brazil, India, and Poland but has now switched to trying to make money with reports that it may lose around $470 million this year.

This news confirms my instinct that I should be exploring a business model for Pigeon that is not ad supported.  How can Internet companies balance the obviously huge demand for content and a need to monetize?  How can web-like services tap into the demand for content and be sustainable?

Next weekend, I’ll be presenting Pigeon at the Parsons MFA Design and Technology 2009 Symposium being held in New York City.  The event will have I’m on a panel with the theme of “Take It With You: The Mobile Movement” on May 2 from 5-6:30pm.

All of my friends and classmates will also be screening their short films, exhibiting their installations, and playing on their instruments.

Complete weekend schedule (pdf).

Pigeon is now available in Spanish.  I’m not exactly a Spanish expert, so if you hear any problems let me know.

The translation and recording wouldn’t have been possible without the help of Kevin and Venessa!

Pigeon now has an official online home: callpigeon.com.  There’s general information about the system, and you can also sign up for an account.

Check it out and let me know if you have any thoughts.

I’ve been working on my resume.

My team and I are at the Game Developers Conference this week, thanks to Nokia.  We presented and demoed our game, Weekness, today.

Weekness turns your text messaging habits into a game.  In one player mode, users guess who text messages were sent to and received from, from weeks past.  In the two players mode, uers play in real time on one phone with another user to guess each other’s most often text messaged words.  In both modes, a new social interactions can be created, extending the pre-existing socail usages of the phone.

Rabia Malik , Yumi Endo and I were the Weekness development team.

Pigeon now cues up your unheard messages first and tells you which messages are unheard when listening to your contact’s Pigeon messages.  Let me know if you have any problems with this.

Very soon, Pigeon will tell you as soon as you log in if you have any unheard Pigeon messages from your contacts.