The Mobile Marketing Blog - TellMyCell

Thumbs up for texting

Good read on how texting is shaping the wireless industry and what kinds of applications are being developed around this popular mode of communication:

Nielsen tracked more than 60,000 wireless bills from the first quarter of 2009 to first quarter of 2010. During that time, the average number of voice minutes used per wireless customer has declined gradually from 742 to 709 minutes per month, while the average number of billed messages increased sharply over the same time period, from 493 monthly texts to 675.

Read the full article at Wireless Week.

Supreme Court ruling lets employers view worker text messages with reason

The U.S. Supreme court ruled that supervisors/employers can check personal text messages of their employees or staff if they believe that workplace rules are being compromised. This ruling came after Sargent Jeff Quon filed a federal lawsuit against the city of Ontario, California back in 2004. Quon believed that his constitutional rights were at stake after his text messages were audited. The conclusion:

"Unless a 'no privacy' policy is clear and consistently applied, an employer should assume that employees have a reasonable expectation of privacy and should proceed carefully, with a good reason and a narrow search, before examining employee emails, texts or Internet usage," Dempsey said.

Continue reading the full article at ComputerWorld.com. 

Reporting on the Gulf oil spill from your cell phone

This article outlines the many ways that you can participate in "crowdsourced" reporting efforts. The Oil Spill Crisis map, created by Tulane Students and an environmental advocacy group, allows anyone from anywhere to report or make an update about the oil spill. Mobile phones are changing the way we receive information and will continue to shape the way we receive information about future events and stories:

Being able to contribute to the ongoing story -- on the spot and from your phone -- could significantly expand and deepen our view of what's news in coming years.

Read the full story at CNN.com

Mobile Phones As Loyalty Cards. Mobile Couponing Here We Come.

We’d like to draw your attention to an article published in the New York Times yesterday about the rise of using mobile phones as electronic loyalty cards. Companies like Loopt, CardStar, and CardBank are using scannable bar codes as a way to store loyalty cards in smart phones. Mobile coupons in the form of text messages are and continue to be extremely popular; this concept is being elevated by these start-ups to “turn existing customers into better ones.”

Learn more at The New York Times