I wish there were more solutions to donating over SMS. I know that companies buy and sell "short codes" to organizations, but these costs are so incredibly expensive in some markets, especially here in Canada. Whereas one could offer an app with a web-interface that connects a customer to a site which sends an SMS to the phone number @ carrier to bypass short codes, i.e. 14165551212@pcs.rogers.com. The only drawback being the person has to choose their mobile carrier or it doesn't work. But it's free and could cut the costs of short codes completely out. Thus freeing up more overhead money for recipients of the charity. It's possible to do, I've done it before with an App I had a part in (sends precious metals price alerts to cell phone using the mobile phone e-mail address instead of sending via short code; helped us profit!).
Optimizing an entire web site for mobile visitors can be expensive and time-consuming depending on the existing content management system. An ideal place to start is with the donation form - a link typically included in charity e-communication pieces. Many third-party donation providers have already built secure forms allowing their clients to capture donations through the mobile web. Quick Response (QR) codes are another cost-effective and creative way for charities to reach out to supporters wherever they are.
I am a participating member of my town's bicycle advisory board and lend a hand with efforts to promote and use bicycling.
Recently, I was part of WADOT (Washington Department of Transportation) and the Cascade Bicycling Clubs annual pedestrian and bicycle census. They sign us up and we go out for two hours and record the bicycles, walkers and other non-motorized travellers who pass through an intersection.
While over time they have been automating the process from a mailed paper form and clipboard to a website for tracking, there was still no technology for recording the cyclists...until I discovered a fantastic Android App called Advanced Tally Counter.
Using this app, I was able to stand at the corner and pull up my Optimus V and simply click with each new person riding through. This allowed me to spend more time watching and less time fumbling with pencils and paper. It also allowed me to send the results by email to myself for transfer to the website. (Yes, I know, ideally I would have this interface direct to the backend...but for now...).
I was thinking...people could do this for all sorts of counts at any time. Sitting in Starbucks with no one to talk to...pull out your counter and see how many bikes roll by...or how many cars enter the Safeway parking lot...all voluntary.
Small towns such as mine (Kent, WA) are often strained for budget. They can do projects but have little resource for monitoring the community or tracking needs. With this simple app you can make cases for what is being used by whom...or not!
In the end, yes, we'd love to have traffic webcams set up with pattern recognizers to do it all automatically, but for now, you can use this small app to make a small difference.
@kq4ym: That's a good suggestion, but I guess this can be a bit unfair to new organizations who are genuine. I think once any user identifies an app to be a scam, he/she should report it immediately to the relevant app store and even spread the word about it over social networks. I believe this is part of social responsibility to prevent other users from becoming a prey to the scam.
Good point....certifying organization would be a necessary process. There are lots of folks out there masquerading at charities, and individuals asking for funds to "help" some less fortunate, or an unknown organization, whose beneficiaries may be in question.
While, it's maybe nice to use an app to find charities, I would think most legitimate ones are already pretty well known, especially in the local community.
So perhaps, the new "charity" apps are only going to encourage "scamsters."
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Businesses often struggle to decide which domain to use. When it comes to purchasing a domain name, you have plenty of extensions to choose from, ranging from .com and .net, to .me, and even .mobi. But which one should you pick?
I've been writing about how the next evolution of the Internet might just be an advertising revolution, and how corporate IT can stay involved as the enablers and providers of the technologies that make this possible.
In the 1970 science fiction thriller Colossus: The Forbin Project, two giant supercomputers from the United States and Soviet Union secretly join forces to take control of the collective nuclear might of the two countries. In the film, the two machines discover each other's existence, communicate back-and-forth, share their collective data, and cut their human creators out of the process. It is the ultimate example of machine-to-machine communications, or M2M.
The smartphone market reached a significant milestone, a breakthrough that may cause vendors to celebrate but could strain the capabilities of IT service desks.
New York's Metropolitan Transit Authority is conducting a pilot test of digital kiosks to guide subway users to where they want to go more efficiently and at lower cost.
The whole Amazon.reader debate is a double-stupid. It's stupid to think that there's any e-book buyer who doesn't know Amazon's URL, and it was stupider to let ICANN launch the whole free-form TLD initiative to start with.
While NFC's original goal was to enhance mobile commerce applications, it is finding its way into a number of other uses, which is creating both opportunity as well as challenges for IT departments.
Enterprises would like to move to cloud computing but are hesitant because they are concerned about providers’ ability to secure company data. Here are some tips that help to ensure that if breaches occur, the business is not left holding the bag.
Edmunds separates customers into segments based on the info it collects on its site and from partners, and uses that to push out custom content, said Brian Baron, director of business analytics for Edmunds.com, at Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit.
The automotive website uses propensity modeling to target ads and customer registration forms, said Brian Baron, director of business analytics for Edmunds.com, at Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit.
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M2M: Rise of the Machines? Not Yet David Weldon In the 1970 science fiction thriller Colossus: The Forbin Project, two giant supercomputers from the United States and Soviet Union secretly join forces to take control of the collective nuclear might of the two countries. In the film, the two machines discover each other's existence, communicate back-and-forth, share their collective data, and cut their human creators out of the process. It is the ultimate example of machine-to-machine communications, or M2M. CLICK FOR MORE
M2M: Rise of the Machines? Not Yet David Weldon In the 1970 science fiction thriller Colossus: The Forbin Project, two giant supercomputers from the United States and Soviet Union secretly join forces to take control of the collective nuclear might of the two countries. In the film, the two machines discover each other's existence, communicate back-and-forth, share their collective data, and cut their human creators out of the process. It is the ultimate example of machine-to-machine communications, or M2M. CLICK FOR MORE
