China Mobile: SMS your Earthquake Relief Donation

May 28, 2008 at 3:43 pm · Filed under SMS, Messaging, Micropayment

China mobile has announced a partnership with the Red Cross Society of China where CMCC customers can make donations to earth quake relief through SMS transactions.

Using the text relief service, China Mobile subscribers can send donations in increments of 1 or 2 RMB (roughly 29 US cents or 19 Eurocents), to earthquake victims. The donations will be deducted from users’ mobile fee accounts.

Initially the web wags thought this was a hoax, but in reviewing the Chinese sites and via Xinhua, China’s official news agency, the SMS relief text is the real thing.

I am of a certain age to remember as an elementary school kid in the late 1960s we used to bring in pennies, nickels, and dimes for such things as the Fireman’s Fund, the United Way, as well as making CARE donations to feed “hungry children in eastern Europe.” CMCC’s efforts are remeniscent of such small donations from so many meaning so much. A simple and great idea swiftly executed.

The cost of the donation is not so inconsequential. 2 RMB is roughly 30 times the average retail cost of an SMS in China, so such transfer pricing would be the equivalent of a kid in the US sending a $3 SMS.

Why Not do this Globally?
Here’s a suggestion for the mobile industry. Why not make this a global initiative? Afterall, in the Philippines you can make cross boarder transfers of top offs and payments from Saudi Arabia or closer from Malaysia. Why not marshall the global wireless industry, with each operator enabling a Text for Relief program within their own network to benefit the earthquake survivors and homeless in China? There are roughly 1000 mobile operators around the globe, with all of them having text messaging capability. Think of how so many could be united behind this effort and make a real impact, just by sending a simple SMS.

Technologically it would be very straighforward with the infrastructure already in place. The transfers of such payments could be affected through the clearing house functions surrounding international roaming, with each carrier routing the funds to a central receiving bank, say the GSM Association or an entity in the Chinese government. This would not be that difficult. Perhaps there might even be a business in it. And it wouldn’t need to stop with just the quake relief in China. Any natural disaster could trigger the phenomenon with major benefits resulting. Consider this a Manifesto for Messaging Relief Capabilities on a Global basis.

Texting to Say You’re “Safe”
In a related effort, SINA, China’s leading on-line media company, partnered with China Mobile Sichuan to launch a platform locating information about people caught in the earthquake region, as well as posting a report on one’s own status by using a common short code 100865 through the Internet, SMS or voice IVR. The estimated millions of homeless then have a readily available source to find informaiton on friends and families. The 100865 service serves as a platform for people to simply and swiftly reconnect with one another. Within three hours of the service launch 1,600 people had used the inquiry service online, with nearly 800 of them finding good news about their relatives and friends.

Internet users may search for information about their relatives or friends by logging onto http://xunqin.sina.com.cn and entering their names and addresses. The platform also provides phone numbers of major hospitals and emergency centers in Sichuan for further inquiry. The SMS inquiry service is only available to CMCC subscribers in the Sichuan Mobile users. Callers within Sichuan can directly dial 100865, while callers outside the region must dial the long-distance code 028 first.

Our hearts are with the Chinese people suffering in the quake-hit areas.

Take action and click on the icon below to find out more ways which you can contribute to the relief of quake victims in China, or please visit my personal blog “>(click here)) for both Asian and western relief organizations providing assistance in China. Stay tuned for more information on how “texting to give” might be possible.

href=”http://www.lostlaowai.com/china-earthquake-how-you-can-help” title=”China Quake Relief”>

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Mobile Credit

March 26, 2008 at 10:34 am · Filed under Mobile messaging 2.0, Ethnography, Mobile Payments, Micropayment, Asia

I’ve been following the ethnographic studies of Nokia’s Jan Chipchase for some time, notably his insights and primary research into the usage of messaging and mobility in the developing world.

One of Chipchase’s observations in Uganda was the notion of ’sente’, using prepay airtime as a form of cheap, secure and convenient banking as well a pooling prepay credit between customers when sufficiently small denominations are available.

Springwise recently reported on similar usage trends in the Philippines, this time as operator-supported services, using SMS as a medium for transferring credit between subscribers. Incidentally, the Philippines was the first market where SMS revenue overtook voice minutes.

Globe Telecom’s user experience is simple - texting a PIN, transaction amount and recipient number to the service number is all that’s necessary. This incurs a charge of a couple pennies, which coupled with the volume of texting in the country, indicates that there’s a lucrative post-voice revenue stream for telcos, displacing their time+distance voice billing with large volumes of incremental transactional revenue.

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