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Description

Journalists are often told they need to master tools like Twitter and apps that run on smartphones. But what about the device that most people have -- cell phones? The majority of cell phone users around the world do not have smart phones and if journalists don't find ways to innovate with regular feature (read dumb) phones, they're missing a huge swathe of the population.

Amy O'Donnell and Florene Scialom work for FrontlineSMS - a free and open source software which helps you to manage SMS text messages without requiring the Internet. It has been downloaded almost 20,000 times and is used in over 70 countries in projects ranging from election monitoring to healthcare, market price information to news bulletins. The FrontlineSMS:Radio project has been focusing on audience interaction via SMS. As part of our Knight News Challenge project we will be exploring how mobile phones can be used for digital news gathering.

Stevie Graham is an experienced full stack web developer and a developer evangelist at San Francisco startup, Twilio. Twilio provides a simple REST API that has enabled over 60,000 developers to programmatically send and receive SMS and make and receive telephone calls. Stevie likes the Ruby programming language.

Jim Colgan worked at WNYC Radio in New York for almost 10 years, where he launched public radio's first mobile crowdsourcing projects. When a major snow storm hit the city last year, he created a way for radio listeners to map the cleanup effort, reporting on how much snow had been plowed (or not), when no reporter could. Jim now works with the text message platform, Mobile Commons, helping news organizations across the US and beyond to find ways for journalists to engage with audience via SMS.

This session will look at how what's often seen as an old-fashioned technology can help journalists engage with their audiences in new ways. Come with your questions as they talk through their projects.

Skills Needed

Reporting, curiosity

Post-Event Participation

Text us!

Hashtags

1. smsnewsroom

Relevant links

frontlinesms.com twilio.com mobilecommons.com

EtherPad for the session to take notes and collaborate