14 August 2008

The Twitter Trials

OK who out there is using Twitter?

Although I have been aware of it and done some reading about it, I'll admit to being a lagging adopter in this case. I even brought it up in the KS course I took earlier this year to learn more about it, but still didn't join. Then today I read some blogs on Twittering by

So today I signed up for Twitter. My ID is "mongkolroek" if you are interested in following me there...

Really what I want to know is how Twitter will be useful for me and also for the communities I am working with. There is a growing interest in the use of mobile phones in the ICT4D field. The interest in, indeed the use of mobiles in the development field is not new. It seems the frequency of mobile phones coming up in discussions I've had with colleagues and partners, and posts I've seen online here and there have increasingly referenced the use of mobiles. Maybe there's now a wider acceptance of their importance, and/or the service is more widely available/affordable, and/or an expansion of functions beyond managing price data, and/or maybe something else.

If anyone can point me to some good information about the value of mobile phones in ICT4D (in practice or theoretical) that would be great.

3 comments:

Gerrit Visser said...

Hi Michael, the development of the growing interest in new ways that cellphones are used in the ICT4Dev field has my particular interest. We blog on that at http://smartmobs.com and you may also find some references at our delicious set with the id compartuser

Michael Riggs said...

Gerrit, thanks for this! It's appreciated & very timely as well. Next week at the e-Agriculture session of IAALD-AFITA-WCCA one of the topics that will be picked up is the impact (realized and potential) of cell phones in rural development. There's particular interest on how the tool can be used to help mitigate problems related to the "food price crisis".

Gerrit Visser said...

Michael, you probably have seen this already, but maybe this article on ZDNet titled 'Humanatarian Collaboration'is in some way helpful

http://blogs.zdnet.com/collaboration/?p=130