Drew Cogbill | Thesis Blog

works in progress.

Archive for the ‘Precedents’ Category

NextBillion.net

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Rob Katz describes NextBillion.net as this:

..a movement in which profit is not seen in a pejorative way. Profit is actually seen as a way we can drive positive economic development…

via AfriGadget

Written by drewcogbill

December 1st, 2008 at 11:37 pm

10-20 new precedents

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Written by drewcogbill

October 26th, 2008 at 11:23 pm

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Meeting with Dave Carroll

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I met with DT faculty member Dave Carroll to go over my work for Pigeon.  We talked things technical, business, and academic.

Technical:

  • Asterisk came up again
  • He thought TXTML may be a good prototyping tool for SMS sign up, especially if it could be connected to my current Voxeo prototyping.  SMSs could be handled through some type of IMAP processing.

Business:

  • If ad based, the ads could be contextual.  (As creepy as it sounds) messages could be decoded, and if someone mentions the Eifel tower an ad for France travel packages could play or be generated from a google ad words ad.
  • Again the idea of some customers paying to support others came up.  I thought that perhaps at sign up users could sign up for a free account or a paying account which will support free acounts (similar to the Radiohead album sales and Good magazine’s newest subscription sign ups).
  • Paying customers could perhaps get general or specific information about how their contribution is supporting users who can’t afford (e.g. “Your contribution this month has allowed 42 pigeons to be delivered”).

Academic

Dave thought that the best case scenario would be to have a working alpha by the end of this semester and a working beta by the end of next semester (”with 5000 users”).

Written by drewcogbill

October 26th, 2008 at 4:17 pm

Jott

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Jott is a phone service which will do all types of internet-y things such as update your calendar, send emails and texts, create to-dos and notes, and more.

Jott connects to and explands lots of different existing web services, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Remember the Milk.  They will also read RSS feeds to you.

(Thanks Chris!)

Written by drewcogbill

October 5th, 2008 at 9:53 pm

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6 Billion Others

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6 Billion Others is a ethnographic, online video project that weaves individual interviews together by linking their common exploration into human experience.

via Tim Brown, Design Thinking

Written by drewcogbill

September 22nd, 2008 at 4:20 pm

Kiva

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Kiva is an online tool for microloaning.  With it, lenders can choose specific entrepreuneurs to support, who then work to repay the loan.  When the loan is returned to the lender, they will hopefully cycle the money back into the sytem to another entrepreuneur.

Written by drewcogbill

September 22nd, 2008 at 1:43 pm

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TextMarks

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TextMarks provides free many to many text messaging services in the US.  Free routed SMSs have an ad attached to them, but for a fee messages can be sent without the ad.

They’ve considered many issues of interfacing with more complex menus with just SMS.

Written by drewcogbill

September 21st, 2008 at 10:35 am

Reliance India/Global Call

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Reliance Global Call, which recently called from Reliance India Call, provides low cost, international phone service.  You have to sign up for the service online.

(Thanks Sandyha and Meha!)

Written by drewcogbill

September 21st, 2008 at 10:27 am

W3C Mobile for Social Development Group

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Ken Banks is co-chairing a W3C group for mobile web for social development.  A recent Economist article, “The Meek Shall Inherit the Web“, quite articulately discusses this new group and Internet delivery via mobile phones generally.  It makes a case for the growing demand for mobile web content, covers past successes, and cautions that web access will continue to be mediated through the simple mobile phone interface for quite some time.  It also advocates the use of business to ensure effective development and sustainability.

In China, for example, over 73m people, or 29% of all internet users in the country, use mobile phones to get online.

One conclusion from the workshop was that promoting social development through the mobile web will mean engaging with businesses.

Written by drewcogbill

September 15th, 2008 at 11:56 am

Telemegaphone

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The Telemegaphone is loudspeaker installed in Norway, which projects a caller’s live voice “out across the fjord, the valley and the village of Dale below.”  The project is certainly a different take on international communication.

One woman said: “This is great. I will sit on my porch with a cup of tea and listen to the world.”

Another woman said: “We like things a little bit crazy here in Dale.”

(Thank Chris!)

Written by drewcogbill

September 15th, 2008 at 11:30 am