The MoPR Blog

Pumpkin carving by our own Holly Woolard!

Trick or Tweet: Twitter as a terrorist tool? According to a document by the U.S. Army obtained by various media outlets this week, Twitter is being regarded as a possible tool for terrorists. According to the report [the emphasis is ours],

“Twitter has also become a social activism tool for socialists, human rights groups, communists, vegetarians, anarchists, religious communities, atheists, political enthusiasts, hacktivists and others to communicate with each other and to send messages to broader audiences.”

For example, terrorists [including “radical” vegetarians we presume] could theoretically use Twitter social networking in the U.S. as an operation tool. However, it is unclear whether the same theoretical use would be available to terrorists in other countries and to what extent, says the report.

According to the National Terror Alert there are three possible scenarios using Twitter:

Scenario 1: Using cell phones and a Google maps/Twitter mash-up to plot where they are, terrorists use Twitter to communicate near-real time to update each other about troop movements and plan an ambush.

Scenario 2: The first terrorist has two mobile phones – one for using Twitter and another which is connected to an explosive device or a “suicide vest.” The second terrorist also has two mobile phones – one for Twitter and the other to detonate the bomb. They communicate using Twitter to coordinate the “precise” time for the attack.

Scenario 3: A cyber-terrorist finds the Twitter account of a member of the armed forces. The terrorist gets information about the target and uses it for identity theft, hacking or physical attacks.

On a lighter side, who wants to be a national hero and tell the U.S. Department of Defense about Twitter’s real-time search?

Who let the blogs out? The number of people who read blogs at least once a month has grown 300% in the past four years, and what they read strongly influences their purchase decisions, playing a key role in ushering them to the point of actual purchase, according to a BuzzLogic-sponsored study. “Harnessing the Power of Blogs,” a research study of more than 2,000 online consumers in the U.S., was conducted by JupiterResearch, a Forrester research company.

For frequent blog readers, ads on blogs are on par with sponsored search results, one of the most prevalent and successful forms of advertising on the web – and trust of blog advertising exceeds that of social networking site advertising.

According to the study, blogs are becoming trusted guides, steering users who are seeking very specific information to places of interest online. “Being able to identify where this is taking place across the blogosphere gives us a window into user intent and a means to better target advertising to a qualified audience. This is great news for advertisers looking to maximize value in today’s environment,” said Rob Crumpler, CEO, BuzzLogic.

Maybe we should consider selling ad space?

Mobile video still not quite ready for prime time. According to comScore, Inc., a mere 6.5 million Americans tuned into mobile video in August. Among the top operators in the United States, AT&T claimed the most mobile video viewers, with 4.4 percent of subscribers accessing either programmed or on-demand mobile video.

According to the study, on-demand video was the most popular format, with 3.6 million viewers.  With 1.3 million viewers, amateur videos, such as those on YouTube, represent the most popular type of content, followed by music videos and comedy videos.

Music videos are the top choice for programmed mobile broadcast video users, followed closely by full television shows or films and movie trailers.

The small amount of eyeballs though has a silver lining – younger viewers might be ripe for advertisers.

“At under three percent penetration, the mobile video audience in the United States remains small, but it is composed largely of males between 18 and 34 years old, which could make it attractive to advertisers seeking to reach multi-tasking early-adopters who don’t have time for appointment television,” said Mark Donovan, senior analyst, comScore.

Is the bulletin board on the fridge obsolete? A national survey of 2,252 adults by the Pew Internet & American Life Project has found that households with a married couple and minor children are more likely than other household types, such as single adults, homes with unrelated adults, or couples without children, to have cell phones and use the internet.

The survey shows that these high rates of technology ownership affect family life. In particular, cell phones allow family members to stay more regularly in touch even when they are not physically together. Moreover, many members of “married with children” households view material online together.

Overall, respondents in the survey see much upside and little downside in the way new technologies have affected the quality of their communications with others.

“Families are becoming networks,” said Prof. Barry Wellman of the University of Toronto and an author of the study. “Each household member can be her own communications hub and that changes things inside and outside the household. Family members are neither isolated individuals nor traditional actors in Fun with Dick and Jane homes. Rather, their households are active sites of the interplay of individual activity and family togetherness.”

Poof. There’s goes Matlock. It actually wasn’t the end times in Wilmington, N.C., this week as local broadcasters made the switch from analog to all digital, reports the Wall Street Journal. Wilmington isn’t waiting until February 2009 to make the switch and is being used as a test area to gauge the transition. Phones rang at local stations but most of the calls were from local residents not prepared for the signals being shut down or folks not getting their new set-top boxes to work.

News junkies and history nerds, rejoice! Google announced this week a major initiative to make old newspapers accessible and searchable online through a partnership with newspaper publishers. Millions of pages of news archives made available online will let users search for articles. Here’s how from the Google blog:

Let’s say you want to learn more about the landing on the Moon. Try a search for [Americans walk on moon] on Google News Archive Search, and you’ll be able to find and read an original article from a 1969 edition of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Not only will users be able to search these newspapers, they can also browse through them exactly as they were printed, with photographs, headlines, articles, advertisements.

Wow.

Are newspapers going to be smart and start selling ad space NOW for the archived files? Think of the possibilities: ad runs for 50 years! Forget the 3x rate, what’s the special lifetime rate?

In 2006, Google started working with publications like the New York Times and the Washington Post to index existing digital archives and make them searchable via the Google News Archive.

No word yet on when additional newspapers will become available, so for now, check out the existing archives on Google of the New York Times and smaller, community papers. Here’s a search we did for “mobile phone.”

USA! USA! USA! 3G usage now even with Western Europe. After a slower start than Western Europe, the United States has caught up in the adoption of 3G mobile, with 28.4% of American mobile subscribers having 3G devices vs. the average of 28.3% among the five largest Western Europe states, according to comScore.

“For years, the American mobile industry has aspired to the level of sophistication of the European market. Today, Americans have finally caught up with Europeans in adoption of 3G,” says comScore.

Are mobile phones replacing toys? The Nielsen Company today released findings from the newly launched Mobile Kids Insights that profiled the mobile activities and preferences of U.S. “tweens” (ages 8–12) and the numbers are impressive.

The report estimates that:

• 46% of tweens use cell phones
• On average, kids get their own cell phone between the ages of 10 and 11
• 55% of tweens who own a cell phone send text messages and 21% download ringtones
• The top reason parents want tweens to have a cell phone is in case there is an emergency or problem

“Tweens have grown up with mobile phones and expect them to do much more than make a call,” says Nielsen Mobile.

Text messaging use explodes. According to The CTIA Semi-Annual Wireless Industry Survey, text messaging set new records, with 75 billion messages reported in the month of June 2008 alone – about 2.5 billion messages a day.  This represents an increase of 160% over the 28.8 billion messages reported in June 2007.  Additionally, wireless subscribers continue to capture and send more pictures and other multi-media messages,, more than 5.6 billion MMS messages in the first half of 2008, which is almost as many as were sent in all of 2007.

The survey also revealed that wireless customers used more than 1.12 trillion minutes in the first half of 2008, up 10.9% over the first half of 2007, and generated more than $72 billion in total wireless revenues in six months.

And, speaking of CTIA, we just got back from their latest show in San Francisco which is wrapping up today. Look for posts next week on some of the cool mobile technologies we saw at the show.