DoSomething.org Delivers Our Thanks to Emergency Service Workers

On the 10th anniversary of the September 11th attacks,we remember with gratitude the emergency workers who risked their lives that day – and who continue to risk their lives to keep us safe. To honor them, DoSomething.org has partnered with Mobile Commons to create Decade of Thanks, an online interactive collection of thankful messages. Users can [...]

Direct Message Makes It Easy To Text Individual Subscribers

Back in ancient times, before there was text messaging, organizations had trouble making their outreach both broad enough to reach a wide audience and personal enough to be relevant to any single recipient. But the dawn of the age of texting dissolved that contradiction. Text messaging lets you get the right information to the right person at [...]

Brad Paisley and Water=Hope Fight for Clean Water Worldwide

One out of seven people worldwide lack access to clean drinking water. That’s why country star Brad Paisley brought the Water=Hope campaign with him on tour this summer. The campaign seeks to raise awareness of the world’s water problems, and to recruit volunteers and donations for the cause. On Paisley’s H20 II tour, the Water=Hope [...]

NYC Severe Weather Map featured on Mashable.com

Mashable.com just featured the Severe Weather Map that Mobile Commons created with the New York Office of Emergency Management and Ushahidi. They write: New York City launched a crowdsourced project Sunday that allows residents to plot damage caused by Tropical Storm Irene on a Google map. Though the storm’s toll was less severe than expected, more [...]

MSNBC Reports: Mobile technology used as a safety tool

Earlier today, Mobile Commons CEO Jed Alpert gave an interview on MSNBC to talk about what we’ve done to both help New Yorkers prepare for and recover from Irene. Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy Click here for more on how we are using technology to keep our communities [...]

Text IRENE to 877877 to report hurricane damages

While preparing our own homes for hurricane Irene, Mobile Commons is also working to keep other New Yorkers safe. On Friday, we developed a mobile database to help residents find out if they were in a flood zone or not. By texting ZONE to 30644, residents could learn if they were in a flood zone [...]

How intense was the quake in your area? Find out!

On Tuesday things got a little shaky at the Mobile Commons office. This week’s earthquake was felt along much of the East Coast and caused mild alarm in areas not used to seismic shifts. Our building was equally as guilty of forcing everyone to evacuate onto the streets of Brooklyn – a move that flies [...]

Do you have a data-driven culture?

Last week, non-profit tech expert Beth Kanter posted about what it takes to create a data-driven culture for non-profits. Mobile Commons’ client Do Something was front and center, or as Kanter puts it: DoSomething.Org… are leaders in the non-profit world for exhibiting the characteristics and work habits of a data-driven organization. (via Beth’s Blog) We know [...]

Four museums. One adventure. All from your mobile phone!

This summer, Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Museums are stepping up their outreach with a brand-new Facebook page for their members. And to celebrate, they’ve created a mobile scavenger hunt that allows even the most frequent museum-goers to discover new things about the museums: Members, charge your cell phones! In celebration of the remaining days of summer—and to [...]

Smokers’ Quit Rates Double with Text Message Support

A recent study about the effects of motivational text messages on smokers shows that mobile technology can do a lot more than send a message – it can change behaviors, too. According to the study, smokers who received cheerleading texts such as “Quick result! Carbon monoxide has now left your body!” were twice as likely [...]