Mobile Commons

Company Name: 
Mobile Commons
Overall Rating: 
4
Rating Average: 
3.82
27 total respondents
About the Company: 

One of the biggest innovators in mobile technology in the public sector, Jed Alpert of Mobile Commons got his start selling political tech thanks to Britney Spears.

Alpert, an entrepreneur in mobile technology, had recently finished building a system through which users could sign up to receive text messages from Britney. One option was to get a text with a number that fans could call to hear Britney reading their horoscopes.

Then, after the 2004 debates over the use of the filibuster in the Senate, he participated in a phone bank for People for the American Way as a volunteer. One day the idea light bulb flashed over his head, and, he says, he asked the organization to give the Britney-gram application a try.

"Rather than calling back and asking them to hear Britney's horoscope [reading]," he explained, "you would be routed to your senator. And it generated a huge amount of attention and publicity and we just built up the company from there."

Mobile Commons now provides mobile technology to businesses, non-profits, advocacy organizations and political campaigns.

The company's approach is that mobile belongs as part of an integrated media strategy — a tool to be put to use alongside e-mail, face-to-face communications, events, TV campaigns and direct mail. Just like e-mail and events, Alpert says, interactions with supporters on their mobile phones should draw from, and contribute to, the contents of a central constituent relationship management database. And it's not just text messages. Reaching supporters on their mobile phones with a call — or sending them a text with a number that they can then call — is another method.

"Our platform is such that it's very easy to have campaigns that integrate voice, text and the mobile web," Alpert says. "It only takes seconds to set things up into other media."

Software Summary: 

Mobile Commons' software is centered around a central web-based dashboard that an organization can use to send messages, invite participants to join campaigns, ask them to make or join a call, collect data like ZIP codes and e-mail addresses, or handle any of the several other tasks associated with running a mobile campaign. The platform can pass data to and from a third-party constituent relationship management database and to other applications through an API, has a built-in "widget builder" for putting together Flash applications that can then be included as part of a website, and also provides code snippets for the web so a campaign collect signups for mobile alerts on its website. It also has a built-in Facebook application builder to integrate a mobile campaign with a Facebook presence.

The Mobile Commons platform can also accept lists of keywords and responses in Excel spreadsheets, which is a simple approach to what is now an oft-utilized mobile method: The text-and-response format to SMS interactivity powers everything from applications in Africa that allow farmers to find the best price of crops to an application a Mobile Commons customer uses to give out environmental information about fish. The campaign uploads the spreadsheet, and anyone who texts the keyword to the short code will get the response included in the spreadsheet.

Mobile Commons will set users up on either dedicated or shared short codes — in the US, five- or six-digit numbers that mobile carriers set aside. Once an organization has their code, they can put what supporters send to it just about anywhere — into a database, onto a website, into a program to tabulate poll results, projected on a giant screen at a rally.

One of Mobile Commons' latest features enables a text to "go viral." A supporter who receives a text from a campaign and wanted to pass it along could always use the "Forward" feature on his or her phone to send it to a friend, Alpert says, but now, that same supporter could pass along the friend's number for the campaign to forward the message — capturing both the number (to tack on an opt-in for future messages) and that the message was forwarded (for consideration in A/B testing, for example).

The point, Alpert says, is full integration.

"Mobile works best when it is not a silo, when it is integrated with all the other media that that organization is using," Alpert says.

He says he believes Mobile Commons does that better than anyone else.

Client Quick-Take: 
Client Close-Up: 

One of the clients to use Mobile Commons' new viral text feature is Do Something, the volunteer organization, but Alpert says other organizations are going to bring the feature on line in the near future. In general, the company sells to organizations looking to build their lists, get out their message (140 characters at a time), and have instantaneous contact with supporters — whether it's for an immediate call to action or just to spread the word.

Quick Facts

Pricing: 

Plans from $500/mo.; depends on messaging volume and list size.

Example Clients: 

Human Rights Campaign; AmeriCares; 1199 SEIU; Tom Udall for U.S. Senate; New York City Dept. of Health and Mental Hygiene

Year Founded: 
2006
Employees: 
10 full-time
Revenue: 
Declined to state
Fairness of Pricing: 
3.28
Quality of Customer Service: 
3.8
Capacity and Reliability of Software: 
4.04
Usability of Software: 
4.15
 

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