Wikipedia is one of the best known websites on the Internet, but did you know it’s actually run by a non-profit called the Wikimedia Foundation? Thanks to the generous support of donors over the years, Wikipedia has been able to keep their invaluable service running for us all to use. Wikipedia also runs a fantastic mobile version of their web site, optimized for small phone screens and mini web browsers.

Mobile Commons is thrilled to announce that we’re working with Wikimedia Foundation to power their new text-to-give mobile fundraising campaign. By simply texting the word WIKI to 25383, Wikipedia users can immediately give $10 to the foundation. U.S. visitors to the mobile version of Wikipedia will see a small call-to-action asking them to support Wikipedia just by sending a text.

How Does it Work?
Through a special partnership with the mobile carriers and the Mobile Giving Foundation, Mobile Commons is able to collect charitable donations via text message without the carriers taking a percentage of the transaction. Typically, when users pay for a ringtone or wallpaper with their mobile phone, the carriers take a fee, which isn’t ideal for non-profits trying to raise money.

The end-user experience is incredibly simple. First, users send a text message to a special 5-digit short code that has been approved by the carriers for charitable donations. They then receive a text message back asking to confirm their donation. At the end of the month, a $5 or $10 charge shows up on their phone bill and the organization gets the donation.

Here’s a small snippet of the article:

The Shedd Aquarium, in Chicago, uses a combination of on-site signs, end-of-aisle displays at local CVS stores with Coca-Cola as co-sponsor, and TV advertising. “We even built in a control group,” said Jay Geneske, assistant director of marketing. “For the promotion running on three local TV stations, we just gave out our phone number and Web site. But on the Fox affiliate we gave out our short code and asked people to text in to win. The response to the Fox [SMS] ad was more than the other three combined.”

and

Emitations, an online retailer of costume jewelry, is about to start a texting campaign promoting a new product line inspired by the “Twilight” vampire-themed book and movie series. Users who text in to register will receive regular alerts about new releases and sales on products tied to their favorite characters. Just for taking part, though, they’ll receive a sampler modeled on the gift bags handed out at Hollywood award dinners.

“Even with this group who’s so used to texting, I think it’s really important to start by giving them something,” said Au-Co Mai, chief executive of Emitations.

So, thanks to all of our clients who continue to push the envelope (and us!) with SMS marketing. Every time we think WE have a good idea, our clients one-up us!

New York — August 19th, 2009 — Mobile Commons, Inc., a pioneer of easy-to-use technology for mobile marketing campaigns, today announced the appointment of Anthony M. Risicato as its Chief Executive Officer. In addition, the company announced that it is expanding its partnerships with agencies on mobile marketing campaigns, leveraging its robust technology platform. Mobile Commons’ platform is designed to comprehensively manage mobile communications programs in one interface. The intuitive Web-based user interface and APIs seamlessly integrate SMS, voice and Web applications with CRMs and databases, enabling companies and agency partners to quickly launch scalable mobile marketing campaigns with robust analytics and reporting. The platform also integrates Twitter, Facebook applications, Flash widgets, and geo-location features. The company has a growing roster of clients, including Credo Mobile, Service Employees International Union (SEIU), Oxfam International, Andre Agassi Foundation, New York City Department of Public Health, Care USA, National Association of Realtors and most recently, the National Basketball Association’s (NBA’s) Sacramento Kings.

“As a mobile company, we have a really good idea of the strengths and weaknesses of vendors in this space,” said Becky Bond, director at CREDO Mobile. “Hands down, Mobile Commons makes the most powerful and yet easiest to use tools of any company big or small. The platform is just excellent and the attention you get as a customer is top notch.”

As CEO, Risicato, a 15-year interactive marketing veteran, will guide the company through its next phase of development, building on its tremendous growth over the last two years. Prior to joining Mobile Commons, Risicato was general manager at Covario, the leader in interactive analytics focused on Global 2000 companies. From 2003 to 2007, Risicato was general manager at Innovation Interactive, a performance marketing company, overseeing business development, operations and product management. In 1998, Risicato joined DoubleClick, where he spearheaded the international operations launch of DART for Advertisers (DFA) based in London.

“Anthony’s deep expertise in interactive marketing, operations and managing hyper-growth companies is a perfect fit for Mobile Commons,” said Jed Alpert, founder and chief strategy officer. “Our focus on easily connecting and integrating SMS to brands, non-profits and advocacy groups continues to be a clear advantage for us, and Anthony’s background will be critical to our continued growth and further collaboration with agency partners.”

Mobile Commons’ award-winning Mobile Messaging platform has powered hundreds of successful mobile campaigns in the brand advertising, advocacy, political and charitable giving sectors. The integrated platform includes:

• mCommons™ – offers a wide-range of features that enables marketers to integrate mobile messaging into campaign strategy, website, and CRM tools.

• mConnect™ – innovative voice application that easily ties in with email, Web, and mobile campaigns. mConnect enables marketers to play pre-recorded audio messages before connecting users to any number, particularly relevant to targeted call-in campaigns.

• mCast™ – take incoming messages and project them onto any screen, at live events, or into widgets and sites across the web.

• mData™ – allows a marketer to upload a spreadsheet or connect to a database and make it instantly accessible from any mobile phone so that consumers can access information while on the go. Includes powerful geo-location technology.

• Mobile Giving – enables mobile donations and fundraising via text messages that can be billed directly to donors’ mobile phones.

“The Mobile Commons team has built an outstanding mobile platform that is a truly unique and powerful medium for brands and their agencies to connect and engage with audiences,” said Risicato. “SMS remains the ‘killer app’ on mobile phones, and I’m excited to help Mobile Commons continue to lead the way in the marketplace.”

About Mobile Commons
Mobile Commons pioneers easy-to-use technology for scalable mobile marketing campaign management. The company’s award-winning mobile messaging platform helps advertisers and agencies quickly launch and manage mobile marketing campaigns from one Web-based user interface coupled with powerful analytics and reporting. The platform’s user interface and APIs seamlessly integrate SMS, voice and Web applications with CRMs and databases, as well as Twitter, Facebook applications, flash widgets, and geo-location features. Mobile Commons’ technology has powered hundreds of successful mobile campaigns in the brand advertising, advocacy, political and charitable giving sectors, including Credo Mobile, Service Employees International Union (SEIU), Oxfam International, Andre Agassi Foundation, NYC Department of Public Health, Care USA, National Association of Realtors, National Basketball Association’s (NBA’s) Sacramento Kings, DoSomething.org, World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and more. For more information, please visit: http://www.mobilecommons.com or text MCOM to 30644.

Press Contacts:
Natasha Grach / Shane Turner
press@mobilecommons.com
+1-858.952.7840

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Usage of the Mobile Commons platform has been growing tremendously this year.  As with many software applications, as they grow, some parts don’t scale as well as others.  This fall, we took a hard look at all the bottlenecks in our software and made some great across the board performance improvements.

• Inbox: due to the popularity of mData and mCast, the number of incoming messages in our inboxes has gone through the roof!  Unfortunately, that made large inboxes load slowly.  With this new release, we have an upgraded database so your inbox will load much faster!
• Importing and Exporting CSVs: When we started this business, mobile lists were relatively small. This year we’ve seen the size of mobile lists double, triple, and quintuple due to increased SMS usage by consumers, not to mention full data integration with CRM partners like Convio and GetActive.  We’ve sped up the process of importing and exporting CSV files, allowing users to upload 10x larger files and we now process them much more quickly.
• Messaging: Part of our secret sauce is how well we are able to handle incoming text messages on a shared shortcode.  We’re constantly tweaking our algorithms to ensure that incoming messages are correctly classified.  We statistically analyzed a full year’s worth of text messages looking for false positives and other misclassifications.  Based on this research, we’re pleased to release the latest version of our text processing algorithms, increasing our lead as the best in the business!
• Security: Mobile Commons is built on the fantastic Ruby on Rails framework and we’ve upgraded to the latest version (and all our server software too).  While this won’t affect our end-users much, it’s extremely important for us stay very up-to-date with all the latest security patches.  Our engineers work really hard to keep your data safe and secure, so we just wanted to mention it.

Finally, we want to thank all of our great customers out there for running such innovative and successful programs and pushing so hard on our technology.  You’ve really forced us to work hard and make our products better and better!  It’s really exciting for engineers to see their hard work out in the real world, used in all sorts of creative ways they never intended.  Never hesitate to let us know other ways we can improve!

Oh, and speaking of algorithms and scaling databases, Mobile Commons is hiring engineers.  We’re looking for full time Ruby/Rails developers in NYC.  If you think what we’re doing sounds like fun, please drop me a line!  I’d love to hear from you.

Michelle Mayorga from Rock The Vote’s Mobile Programs; Casey O’Shea, DCCC National Field Director; and Katie Harbath, former Deputy eCampaign Director, Giuliani for President and I discuss the present and future of mobile and campaigns. Click here to watch.

Thanks to my friend Jonathan Spalter -the Mobile Future coalition chair – for putting it together.

From Matt himself:

Nearly 18 months ago, I set out to learn more about how Convio could deliver services to our clients in the exploding mobile space. After a ton of research and evaluation, I was thrilled to form Convio’s mobile partnership with Mobile Commons. Throughout the entire project, the Mobile Commons team and product continued to impress me. And when they asked me to join them, I couldn’t say no.

What was so interesting to me? Mobile applications felt much more like having a conversation with an organization rather than a broadcast from them, something that is paramount to interactivity and capturing a constituent’s attention. 60-80% percent response rates and 99% open rates are just plain more fun when it is time for testing and benchmarking.

The most alluring mobile opportunities, however, are the things we haven’t done yet. What are some location-based applications that would be useful to an activist organization? How will iPhone Apps or Google’s Android OS affect nonprofits? How can we help nonprofits raise money with mobile? Will voice calls to Congress, driven by text messages, change our legislative process?

Here is a little about me:

I love politics and technology. Prior to joining Mobile Commons, I built partner programs at Convio and GetActive Software that introduced innovative technologies into Convio’s product suite and brought leading consulting firms devoted to political and nonprofit online strategy into the companies’ communities.

Building partnerships with other cool technologies and introducing our mobile suite to nonprofit marketing agencies will be my main focus here at Mobile Commons, and I am really excited to continue working in this vibrant nonprofit technology community.

If you want to learn more about becoming a Mobile Commons Partner, please shoot me an email at matt@mcommons.com or give me a buzz at 415.699.4474.

Cheers!
Matt

Agencies involved: ss+k, neverstop

If you do attend please come to the panel: Mobile Politics: How to Unblock the Future which will include Becky Bond from Credo Mobile, Scott Goodstein from the Obama campaign, Catherine Geanuracos from Live Earth and me.

Credo Mobile has done some of the most innovative and effective mobile Get out the Vote programs. The Obama campaign has integrated mobile into their media strategy better than anyone else. I will be discussing various ways campaigns and organizations are using mobile as well as the policy issues that effect mobile innovation.

It’s Our Healthcare won the Gold and Sliver for its text to screen campaign.

Bronze went to the DCCC for its State of the Union campaign.

Honorable Mention went to the Human Rights Campaign’s mobile action network.

We would like to thank these organizations and their partners – Blackrock Associates for It’s Our Healthcare and MSHC Partners for Human Rights Campaign.

Our clients and their partners continue to amaze us by using our applications in innovative ways. We’re very grateful.

• Benjamin Stein is going to be at Txting for Health at Stanford University on February 29th and March 1st. He’ll be leading a workshop on mobile technology on Saturday the 1st.
• Chris Muscarella is going to be at SXSW from March 8th-March 10th. He’ll be speaking on a panel at 2pm on Sunday the 9th called Mobileactive: How Mobile Technology Impacts Politics and Vice Versa.
• Jed and Chris will be at the MEC Education Conference in Tempe, Arizona from March 10th-12th. We’ll be demoing some great ways to bring mobile into an educational setting.
• Matt Bieber will be at IPDI in Washington, D.C. on March 4th and March 5th. Matt will be on a panel called Nobody Leaves Home Without Their Cellphone: Mobile Strategies for Political and Advocacy Campaigns at 3pm on the 5th.
• Jed and Chris will be at the NTEN Conference in New Orleans, LA from March 19th-21st. They’ll be speaking on several panels and there will be a big annoucement.
• Jed Alpert will be at the Aspen Institute’s Arab-U.S Media Forum in Dead Sea, Jordan from March 26th-28th.