K Street Cafe

Smartphones Nearly 20% of All Phones Sold
(Advocacy 2.0)
Smartphones sales are steadily rising, emphasizing the importance of going mobile.

FEMA Gets a New Website (Tech President)
FEMA unveils minimalist design aimed at promoting emergency preparedness.

Open Government: Idling in the Driveway (Sunlight Foundation)
Earlier last week as part of the Open Government Directive, the rubber was supposed to hit the road with respect to agencies releasing data. Unfortunately, some agencies avoided the requirement altogether, while others simply stated that  a plan on how to identify and release data would be created. 

Mobile App Developers Tackle Africa’s Biggest Problems (CNN)
Mobile app developers are sprouting in Africa to help tackle some of its biggest problems, many creating applications that can be used with phone text messages.

Crossposted on Mediafuturenow.com.

Twitter is not a broadcasting medium.  Much has been written about Twitter as the first “true” realization of the power of real-time social media.  Twitter is an advocacy medium.  Just ask Shaun Dakin.

Dakin is a former FedEx executive and, among other things, a big Twitter advocate.  He’s done something kind of amazing.  Dakin is CEO and founder of The National Political Do Not Contact Registry, a campaign to restrict “robo” calling and other less automated telephone calls for political and advocacy campaigns.

Perhaps not a particularly glamorous grassroots campaign, the Registry is exactly the kind of political “process” campaign that seeks to better participatory democracy in this country.  It’s the nuts and bolts of the workings of elections and advocacy campaigns, and it is worth both the attention of political professionals and (for our purposes) good study by the media and technology communities.  It is effective. (more…)