The first day of IPDI#039s Politics Online Conference is behind us and I am here to give you the "mobile minute" so to speak. With both of the major mobile panels taking place on the second day there was not munch in depth discussion on Mobile Technology.

While there was a lot of buzz around the subject it was also made clear that some people just do not get it.

The panel entitled "Video: Coming to a Pocket Near You" was much more focused on the concept of "Video" production itself and only touched briefly on the phenomena of video podcasting in that Laura Crawford from Crawford Creative convinced the audience that material looks really good on a video Ipod and to prove its viral nature she told stories about how she is famous for whipping out her Ipod at a bar, slapping a pair of headphones on an individual and passing around her political videos. The extremely talented Eric Blumrich from Bushflash.com also pointed out that he gets asked more and more to make his video#039s in MP4 Ipod friendly files.

Speaking of Ipods, its also important to mention that the conference was kicked off mobile style when Dan Weaver from Mobile Accord gave a taste of the mobile medium by demonstrating an IPod Nano SMS raffle taking place at the event. And I am happy to say that there may be some interesting prospects for readers of my MOpocket blog down the line.

But Some People Still Just Do Not Get It

The mobile buzz was certainly buzzing here as I have had numerous conversations on the future impact of mobile technology and politics with enthusiasts. But what today also proved to me was that while a lot of these "politicos" like to talk about the use of the mobile medium and politics as a catchy buzz phrase, they still miss larger important points concerning the uniqueness of the medium and what it has to offer.

The panel on E-fluentials and Word of Mouth Politics was a case in point. At least two of the panelists talked about how one of the newest tools En-fluentials are using for "word of mouth viral politics" is SMS/text messaging. But since the speakers such as Idil Cakim (of Burson Marsteller)and David Lytel of E-advocates only talked about famous European and Asian examples in which mobile technology played a major role in politics (something I have written about numerous times both here as well in the Politics-to-Go handbook and the current Politics Online Magazine p.55), I thought I would ask the obvious question of what E-fluentials where doing with the mobile medium here in the United States and what certain barriers had to be overcome here in order to breakthrough its slow uptake.

David Lytels response both surprised me and didnt in both his candor as well as his lack of knowledge and insight on the phenomena. First of all it is important to point out that I added Japan into my list of countries doing interesting things with mobile technology. In a tone that sounded as if I should have already known this, Lytel first told me that he would not consider Japan a good example of how E-fluentials use text messaging via the political mobile medium. Now, while perhaps this is true for politics, it certainly does not speak to the keitai (Japanese for cell phones) cultural phenomena that dominates the everyday life style. The study of japanese societies unique relationship to mobile technology is extremely important to understanding mobile use in any setting, political or not. Lytel then proceeded to answer the rest of my question, first telling the audience that text messaging is simply too expensive in that unlike Europe and the Asia, Americans pay to receive text messaging here in the United States. The prospect of using text messaging was simply to expensive for most people, pointing out that it adds an extra 10 dollars to ones phone bill.

The cost factor appears to make sense at first until you look at the facts. First of all (and I am still trying to find these statistics again), Europeans and Asians on average, because of there heavier mobile usages, end up paying far more money on their phone than the average European. One such example can be seen in European and Asian data packages where only a couple of days ago a Korean youth committed suicide because of a 3,000 US$ telephone bill from data charges.

The empirical data from both political as well as non-political examples also prove that whatever it is that has prevented the uptake off of SMS/ text messaging here in the United States (and thus on a US political level as well) it is not in large part the cost at all. Jed Alperts (who is talking in the Politics-to Go panel) Mass Immediate Responseprogram he built for the People for the American Way is a case in point when he got a response rate of nearly 27 percent, thats 25,000 people, to use SMS as a political activism tool during the Roberts nomination. And this was amongst the 40-60 year old crowd (assumed to be a cost cautious non SMS friendly crowd) Lets not forget the millions of Americans that use text messaging to vote on American Idol or connect with friends via services like Dodgeball

But it was what Lytel said after this that really got to me the most. Lytel went on to talk about how the political climate in the countries in which these SMS political revolutions took place are "extremely contentious" and he pointed out that "they do not have elections like we do where half of the people stay home" because, as he put it, in these countries "a great deal more is at stake." He pointed out how in these types of political environments it makes a good deal of sense why social networks are extremely active. He also pointed out that in these cases "its just that you are laying texting on top of a already enraged political climate in which case protests would have happened with or without cell phones. "

As to how to bring about it in the United States," Lytel concludes, "I dont know, It would probably involves the overthrow of the government."

Really. In that case the revolution is upon us. I guess Lytel just forgot about the wide explosive (and often talked about) use of SMS and text messaging by the protesters during the RNC and DNC where social technologies such as TxtMob and Upoc allowed protesters to organize and coordinate events (as well as stay safe) in real time via text alerts.The technology works a lot like an email bulletin board where a person can sign up to send and receive messages to and from a various group. The subsequent unavailability of SMS services for T-Mobile customers during parts of the protests has of course been shrouded in heated conspiracy debates. Nevertheless, even crowd control specialists are calling the TxtMob tactics a victory for the other side, putting the protesters a step ahead of the police when it came to technology and its ability to organize mobily. Lets not also forget the phenomena of Flash Mobing in which spontaneous SMS alerts where used to create quick and portable "Flash Mobs" that would meet spontaneously to build a network, share music and then pack up in leave... a file sharing rebellion that the entertainment industry will never be able to do anything about. Other examples include P-SMS fundraising for poverty or Darfur or Katrina in which millions of Americans sent key words to a Short Codes which allowed the carriers to add the donation to their next phone bill.

I have always agreed with Lytelss assessment that SMS is just a tool of the cause. All technology is just a tool for the cause. As I have said before, the mobile medium is not a persuasion tool. You can’t create a mobile revolution without the revolution. So the use of the mobile medium by political campaigners will not be successful unless there is a lot of political momentum and interest around the candidate. Which is why I find Lytels' statement about the American political scene being not "contentious" enough for SMS or as he put it, why "social networks" are extremely active surprising and puzzling. My question to Lytel is that if the US political sean is not as "contentious" as European post-communist and Asian politics, then why are we here at a Politics Online conference and why is everyone here talking about different ways to take advantage of the already widely successful social networks proliferating online. Certainly Lytel would not say the same thing about the blogosphere whose political impact, I think we can all attest to, (and which Lytel talked about at great length) has had an explosive impact on numerous American political issues.

And this is exactly what the real problem of why mobile medium technologies have trouble taking off here in the United States. It has nothing to do with "cost" or the American political climate. What it has to do with is the way in which Americans and American E-fluentials such as Lytel perceive the mobile medium, which is through the hegemonic eyes of American academic PC internet discourse. Excuse me for getting philosophical here, but these differences are in fact rooted in the different ways technology is perceived, amongst other things. This is especially the case when it comes to PC’s, mobile devices and the online world of the Internet. This is something I wrote about in the Politics Online magazine on page 55 so I wont repeat myself much here. But Lytels forgetting about how similar the blogosphere is to the "social networks" he was saying where impossible when talking about SMS in the States show that when looking at Internet technologies from the perspective of PC based Internet most American mobile users and businesses perceive the mobile Internet as ‘second-rate’ access, something good to have when you don’t have your PC or laptop. It’s good for making phone-calls (and in America even that is questionable). The problem with this model of Internet, when applied to the mobile medium is that it assumes a universally desirable technological resource whereas the mobile medium both infiltrates and adapts to the structures of existing practices and places. An economic understanding of the mobile revolution can only go so far. A different means of information technology communication did not only develop out of economic necessity but also came to be precisely because alternative trajectories of IT and communications discourse could and needed to exist.

This is why, while not on a political level, it is important to pay attention to Japan. Japanese Keitai culture teaches us that the “American” way of thinking about and perceiving the Internet is not the only way and that “portable, lightweight engagement form an alternative constellation of ‘advanced’ Internet access characteristics that stand in marked contrast to complex functionality and stationary immersive engagement.” The differences here are between networked infrastructures that base themselves on a cross-cultural universal model (the PC internet) and a network built on a true network of shifting localities and cultures (the mobile medium). Neither one is better than the other, that’s not the point here. The point is to show that they are different and that problems only occur when one discourse dominates the way we perceive the other.

When it comes to integrating the mobile medium into politics just focusing on the technology is not the right way to go. Unlike the stationary PC, mobile communications are located in the very social, cultural and historical contexts in which they are physically used. It enables already established means of communication to evolve in new and wonderful ways. So what can U.S organizers learn from the success of political uses of SMS abroad? Toppling the U.S government is not requited. To use my favorite quote from Howard Rheingold’s book SmartMobs, “The killer apps of tomorrows mobile infocom industry won’t be hardware devices or software programs but social practices.” I guess, to sum it up I would say that first they need to start thinking about technology differently and that secondly they need to focus on the social discourses that surround that technology.

The mobile medium is not the “new computer.” It is the new phone. It is not a second rate means of accessing the Internet. Nor is it the “new internet.” It is simply a new, portable and lightweight way to approach the Internet, which in turn, will completely re-conceptualize the way in which we think about the Internet. Incorporating mobile technology into a political campaign has got to move beyond the same old e-mail / database way of doing things. It has to incorporate the already established networks that mobile users already take part in which includes the social spaces and conversations of everyday life.

On that note, it#039s not an end-all solution. There are things that the mobile phone can do amazing things with and there are things that the PC and other technologies will be better at. Mobile is just a tool, good for some things and not so good for others.

What mobile technology promises to do, is change and let us rethink exactly what we mean about the "online" part of Politics Online." I have no hard feelings for Lytel, this is important to note. His insight on E-fluential#039s in the blosophere during the panel discussion was priceless. Unfortunately, I do not blog about the blogosphere, I blog about about mobile technology and being that mobile technologies role in politics is something I am passionate about I had to respond to statements I thought did not fit to par with my understanding of the issues.

But today is going to be the real big day with the "Politics-to-Go" panel taking place early in the morning and my own panel on making the third generation phone call (ASTERISK and VoIP) panel taking place later in the afternoon.

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Technorati Tags: bushflash, crawford, David Lytell, dogeball, ipdi, jed alpert, keitai, Mass Immediate Response , mobile, mobile accord, mopocket, politics online, txtmob, upoc

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