LDS Media Talk

I am pleased to report that the free Mormon Channel iPhone application is now available. This application allows iPhone users to tune into content being broadcast on the Mormon Channel, as well as listen to audio recordings of General Conference addresses, magazine articles, and the Church’s standard works. This application also works on the iPod Touch.

We are working on something similar for other mobile phones.

Get the Mormon Channel iPhone app

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How many households are abandoning land-line telephones and going mobile-only?

According to the National Center for Health Statistics, nearly 15% of all US households were wireless-only in 2007. 25% of the households in Utah were mobile-only in 2007 (second highest state in the USA). In emerging markets, people are likely to by-pass fixed communications altogether and go straight to mobiles.

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TNS Global reports that 74% of the world’s digital messages were sent through a mobile device in January 2009, up from 59% a year ago. In emerging countries, 9 out of 10 messages are sent by a mobile device.

Although PC e-mail is still the most popular message method  in developed countries, its use is waning. Worldwide, more and more messages will be sent via mobile devices.

Source: eMarketer

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I happened today across a Web site called Tagga.com which provides free text messaging services.  Tagga (82442 on the phone keypad) allows you to create text messaging campaigns so that when people text in a keyword, they will be texted back with additional information.  Additional Tagga services allow you to put a Tagga button on your Web site or blog that then gives visitors the ability to easily send information from your site to their mobile phone.  The video below explains Tagga’s text messaging services in more detail:

There are many cool potential uses of Tagga, but one I want to try out soon is the ability to sell something, even your home or car.  This is how it works, just log on to the site Tagga.com, create an account, then go through the steps to set up a text campaign.  The campaign will include a brief text message and a link to a mobile site with more information.  Put the campaign code on your for sale sign, then people who see your sign can text the campaign keyword to Tagga and receive back on their cell phone more detailed information. To test it out, and to let you see how it works, I set up my own text messaging campaign on Tagga.com to sell a fake house. Text the word ‘myhouse’ to 82442 to see how it works.

Church Uses for Text Messaging Services

As we have been contemplating the next generation of Church Web sites, there has been a lot of discussion around mobile phones and text messaging services. Text messaging is continuing to grow in the US and around the world, in fact, there are many people in remote places of the world that do not have access to a computer, but they do have cell phone service.  Text messaging services that the Church has thought about are:

• Texting something like ‘map’ to the Church to get directions to the nearest Church building.
• Text a ward name to the Church and receive back its meeting times.
• Providing a Web site for bishops who can’t (or don’t) text to exchange text messages with the youth or other members of their ward.
• Text keywords like ‘priesthood’ to the Church and receive back a definition of the term.
• Allowing a bishop to text a member’s name to the Church and receive back their contact information (address, phone, email, etc.) and who their home teachers are.

What additional ideas do you have for Church uses of text messaging? Leave a comment to let us know. How about the features listed above, are they ones you would use? Fill out the survey below to let us know. (If you don’t see they survey in your RSS reader or email, then go to the blog Web site and you will see it).

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A group of researchers have devised a method which allows people to communicate over a 2G cell phone network using Sign Language. This is a pretty big step for deaf people, because text messaging is a poor substitute for the expressiveness of Sign Language, and for many who have been deaf since childhood, English is truly a foreign language.

Source: Aaron at NorthTemple.com

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eMarketer estimates that 82% of US teens (ages 12-17) and 43.5% of children (ages 3-11) will use the Internet on a monthly basis in 2009.

About 19% of active Internet users in July 2008 were under age 18. (Source: Nielsen Online)

71% of US teens have a mobile phone. (Source: The Pew Internet & American Life Project)

59% own a desktop or laptop computer. (Source: The Pew Internet & American Life Project)

The following chart shows how they communicate.

Teens expect to be able to navigate between social networks, text messaging, instant messaging and virtual worlds seamlessly. They want messages sent by one means to be accessible in another. In fact, the distinctions between online, offline, and mobile communications are meaningless to many teens. They want simple means of communicating that are engaging.

The trick for most parents is to even understand what this fast-moving audience is doing.

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In late 2007, Reuters reported that “worldwide mobile telephone subscriptions reached 3.3 billion.”  This fact has generated a lot of discussion here at the Church on its implications about how cell phones could be used to keep members and church leaders connected and otherwise further the work of the Lord.  Particularly intriguing to the Church is that in many developing countries with little landline telephone infrastructure, mobile phone usage has grown rapidly.  The scene like that in the picture below are common: folks that may not even have electricity in the home, often have cell phone service. 

Photo used by permission from Craig C. Christensen

On the surface, it certainly appears like a golden opportunity to use cell phone technology to reach audiences the Church otherwise could not.  As an analyst, though, my nature is to approach the subject more cautiously and do a little more digging before I jump to such a conclusion. Here’s what my investigation has revealed:

You can’t say that half the world has a cell phone. There are about 6 billion people on the earth, so you might think 3 billion cell phones means 50% of people have cell phones, but this is not the case. The 3.3 billion figure does not take into account people with multiple mobile phones, so the actual number of mobile phone users is less than that. Hong Kong and much of Europe has mobile penetration of around 150%, meaning 1.5 mobile phones per person, on average across those populations. The Reuters report above further states that “59 countries have mobile penetration of over 100 percent.”

Mobile phone access does not equal mobile Internet access. The US has one of the highest rates of mobile Internet access, yet even here the Pew Research center says that only about three fourths of mobile phone users have mobile internet access.  Worldwide the percentage of cell phone users with Internet access is much lower.  Some estimates put it around 800 million, or 25%, of cell phones worldwide have Internet access. (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phone)

Not all mobile Internet access is a broadband mobile connection. Earlier this year, the GSM Association reported estimates of only 32 million broadband mobile connections worldwide, though it’s increasing at a very fast pace. This means that only a very small fraction, about 10%, of mobile users worldwide have broadband Internet on their phone. This does not prohibit slow-connection mobile Internet users from accessing content on their phones, but studies show much higher usage with broadband mobile connections.

What all this means for the Church’s use of mobile networks to further the Lord’s work is yet to be determined. On the surface, an aggressive mobile strategy seems like a no-brainer, but digging into the analysis reveals a very different story. What do you think the Church’s mobile strategy should be? What direction is your company headed with regard to mobile?

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LDS.org provides a simple program that let you enter an address anywhere in the world and find the nearest LDS meetinghouse (place of worship). We are pleased to announce an upgrade to this program, which can be accessed beginning today through many links on LDS.org and Mormon.org, as well as directly at maps.lds.org.

This upgraded program provides many new features not available previously, including:

• A more visual, dynamic user experience. You can enter an address or simply point to a location on a map.
• On the map, you can switch between road, satellite, or aerial views. You can also zoom in or out and drag the map around.
• You can switch between Google and Microsoft maps to get the best map for a given location.
• When you search for a location, results are provided in two categories: “Closest Meetinghouses” shows the three meetinghouse locations physically nearest to your location. “Assigned Congregations” displays a list of available congregations you may attend for the selected location, such as language-specific wards/branches, Young Single Adult (YSA) units, and Student wards.
• You can select a ward/branch and get additional contact information (such as phone numbers), go to the unit Web site, or get driving directions.
• In places where accurate street information does not exist, you can locate meetinghouse chapels by using the “Place Marker” on the map to select the location rather than typing an address.
• Maps.lds.org also works on mobile devices through a simplified user interface.
• If you find a data error, you can report it directly using the Feedback button on the page.
• With each new selection, information on the page changes without reloading, thus speeding up response time.
• When you find a location, you can send a link to it to a friend.
• You can access the program directly at maps.lds.org.

Please feel free to try this new program and share it with your friends and neighbors.  Feedback, suggestions, and corrections to the data are welcomed and encouraged by using the Feedback link on the application.

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There is an interesting article in today’s USA Today about religious podcasts.

• “…podcast technology is opening the doors to a wider variety of religious teaching than ever before, available on demand and delivered automatically to the computers of a growing number of Americans hungry for spirituality.”
• Even small churches can use podcasts to reach large audiences. More than 1 million sermons are accessed monthly from SermonAudio.com, a site that small churches can use to distribute their sermons. The site is now branching out to allow people to access their sermon library of nearly 170,000 sermons by iPhones and iPods.
• “A survey last year by the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that more people used the Internet to look for religious and spiritual information than to download music, participate in online auctions or visit adult websites.”
• GodTube, a Christian alternative to YouTube, has about 2 million users a month. It plans to launch a program that will allow churches to set up their own social networking home pages and post slide shows and audio.
• Experts expect that the easy access to religious teaching from podcasts probably won’t keep people from church, just as TV and radio didn’t hurt church attendance.
• In some cases, a good podcast might be better than a traditional passive church experience. If a person goes to church and passively listens to a talking head give a sermon, then leaves, a podcast experience might be more engaging.
• WorshipIdeas offers tips for contemporary church worship leaders.

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This news from Reuters today:

AT&T plans to end its dwindling pay phone business by the end of 2008, as more consumers use mobile phones.The move affects AT&T pay phones in the company’s previous 13-state service area. BellSouth has already exited the pay phone business in its 9-state area.

Pay phones in the United States have declined across the industry from about 2.6 million phones in 1998 to an estimated 1 million phones today.

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I’ve spent the last few months trying to decide what to do with my 3-year-old mobile phone and my 7-year-old iPAQ Pocket PC. (You’d think if I’m ldsWebguy techno-geek, I’d have newer gadgets, wouldn’t you?) They are both failing, and I’m tired of carrying two gadgets and trying to keep contacts manually in sync between these two devices, not to mention between my contacts and calendar on my laptop.

I tried a Blackberry for a month, but decided that I didn’t really need (or want) to have e-mail tethered to my hip 24×7. To answer most of my e-mail, I need to access information on my laptop and compose a more thoughtful response than what is convenient with two thumbs on a Blackberry. Besides, I wanted other applications that need Windows Mobile to run.

So I bought a Samsung SCH-i760 with Windows Mobile 6, WiFi, and a large QWERTY keyboard. It’s ok, but I’m not delighted. It has a lot of nice features–but clunky ways to access them. You can only program certain things into the function buttons. You can only get to certain things from the keypad. And for other things, you have to use the stylus and the touch screen. And so many clicks to perform tasks! I wish Microsoft would learn something about user experience from Apple. And I wish Apple would learn something about reliable hardware from the PC world. My 6-month old iPod just died–I used it about 12 times. No one in my family has owned an Apple product that has lasted a full year. Microsoft gets you to buy the latest OS by making new software is not backward compatible. Apple makes sure you buy their latest gadget by building in a chip that self-destructs in your current product just as a new product launches. They make sure you won’t feel too bad about your old gadget dying, by making the next product just flashy enough (with twice the memory) so you’ll want to buy it anyway.

Overall, I’m glad I merged by mobile phone with my PDA.  I just wish it were more user-friendly. But hey, that’s an excuse to buy the next product that will be just one tiny step better, right?

Just today’s ramblings…

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Parents: Be careful that the toys you buy for your child this Christmas don’t have unlimited Internet access, or he/she could easily (an innocently) view pornography.

Wireless handheld devices, such as video cell phones, iPods, iPhones, PDAs, and PlayStations and other video game consoles are now conduits for all the good stuff–and all the pornography–available on the Internet.

The Religious Alliance Against Pornography and the National Coalition for the Protection of Children & Families, of which the LDS Church is a member, has sent a strongly-worded warning letter to congregations across the United States. Here are key points from their warning:

• Lots of wireless gadgets are commonly put in the hands of children and youth and many of these devices are capable of accessing anything on the Internet.
• Don’t expect government or the wireless industry to protect your children. Companies are just now developing filters for wireless devices, and only T-Mobile, AT&T and Alltel provide any kind of Internet blocking tool.
• Wireless companies do not intend to warn parents at the time of purchase about the dangers of Internet pornography.

“Let’s be very clear. Wireless technology is not the enemy. Rather, the danger lies in the perverse misuse of the technology and the fact that safeguards are limited in both availability and reliability.”

The letter warns that every child will be impacted directly or indirectly because:
“Pornographers are continually on the offensive and are determined to seduce those not seeking pornography and force their immorality on us. They have learned how to manipulate innocent people from good sites to pornographic sites.
“Every child will have some peers or friends of peers that are plugged into the Internet through a wireless device (video mobile phone, PDA, video iPod, iPhone, PlayStation).
“Pornographic material is powerfully addictive and because those peers who will be impacted, will talk about it, and will offer access to the material.
“Young people and children are often more computer literate than their parents and grandparents and are inquisitive about sexual things.
“Children and youth are already putting pressure on their parents to have video mobile phones, etc. that can access the Internet. That pressure will increase significantly as the video mobile phone industry explodes. Within a matter of months almost every mobile phone will have Internet and picture capacity and we know that the wireless industry will produce a massive advertising campaign because they make their large profits through monthly Internet fees. Peer pressure to not be left behind will intensify.
“If your children don’t succeed with you in getting the Internet, some of their friends or peers will succeed with their parents. When they discover pornographic material, including its addictive nature and how it impacts their hormones, they will share it with others. Knowledge is power and they will become an ‘In Group’.
“When (not if) your child sees that material, because you have trained them in the Christian faith, he/she will likely be attracted and repulsed at the same time. Often the revulsion will wane and the titillation will come back and make it more difficult to say, ‘No’ consistently over a long period of time.”

Read more excerpts from the letter in the Church News of November 17, 2007.

For more information, see the National Coalition for the Protection of Children & Families or my previous blogs on wise/safe use of the Internet.

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According to the PEW Internet and American Life Project: “A growing number of Americans rely solely on a cell phone for their telephone service, and many more are considering giving up their landline phones.”

In my post of June 14th, I reported that 11% of US adults now use only a mobile phone to place phone calls. But it’s even greater than I thought.

Government statistics as of December 2006 showed that at least 12.8% of US households have only a cell phone and no landline telephone. Given the growth rate from the previous periods, that number today is probably around 15%.

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According to a recent study, 11% of US adults now use only a mobile phone to place phone calls and 17% only use mobile and the Internet (VoIP).

So, where is this heading? If you look at the 18-to-29-year-old group, a full third of them use only a mobile phone or the Internet for their calls. One telling statistic is that mobile-phone-only users tended to be male and better educated, but less affluent than the general adult population.

In addition to phone calls, there are other factors driving mobile use, such as text messaging, picture sharing, watching video, and listening to music.

Learn more at eMarketer.

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This year, banks and wireless service providers are rolling out products that will let customers check their account balances, pay bills, transfer money and receive alerts about deposits and payments by mobile phone.

By the end of 2007, TowerGroup expects that eight of the 10 largest banks will offer mobile banking and bill payment of some kind. They believe that up to 25% of existing Internet banking customers will adopt mobile banking. See eMarketer for more information.

But don’t hold your breath yet. Some surveys show that only 8% of online consumers who own a cellphone are interested in mobile browsing to check their account balances. This whole mobile world is still new, and it’s anybody’s guess how far (and it what direction) it will go.

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