Monomedia: I Can Has Cheez Burger for Africa

Although YouTube and Flash animations are “flashier” there’s something to be said for keeping it simple. As I mentioned in a previous post video and audio tend to require a lot of work to implement, they tend to be frivolous, and they are not very useful for mobile media.

So, what are some effective “monomedia” as opposed to “multimedia?”

• Photos: Easy and powerful way to simply communicate a complex message.
• Animated GIFs: Yes, I know they’ve been overused and abused. But with a program like UnFreez anyone can make a mini-PowerPoint.
• Mashups: I’ve been playing with the Face Mash at eclectech. The results as you can see in the image are bizarre but certainly attention-grabbing. I can has cheez burger is probably the most popular online tool for doing this.
• Comics: I love ‘em but they require a lot of talent and quite a few steps to get them uploaded. It would be great to have Zapiros all over Africa doodling away but I think there are some serious entry barriers.

I’ve yet to see these tools effectively used in Africa for advocacy, social activism and marketing. But they’re simple, easy to share and I expect they could make an impact in communicating messages. Note especially the use of photos of politicians. I’ve created an example below of how a tool like I can has cheez burger can facilitate grassroots political discussion.

How do people interact with electronically published information?

I’ve been playing around with lots of alternative art forms on my Lingamish blog. In fact, I think I’m driving my readers crazy. But I have been very curious about the different ways we can present information and how people interact with and reuse that information.

Here is a list:

1. Posts: Well, this is the standard. Rant about something. Include some links and maybe a picture.
2. Link list: Collecting a list of similar posts in one place.
3. Photos: Usually trying to communicate a deeper truth about Africa through the “story” of a photo: “Look at this overloaded truck with a goat tied to the hood. This shows how poor yet resourceful Africans are…”
4. Poems: Concise and concentrated language that can impact readers more deeply than an extended prose piece.
5. Songs: Everything from sharing the lyrics or a snippet of a popular song to original off-the-cuff recordings for entertainment, edification or education.
6. One-liners: Not a post but a quick comment or question to elicit discussion.
7. Videos: Either YouTube videos to show how stupid something is or, as I’ve been playing with recently, short education videos with a “handmade” feel.
8. Doodles: Using a simple line drawing to make a point or entertain.

Each of these forms has its own advantages and disadvantages. Some of the binary distinctions might include:

• Quick vs. time intensive: Videos and audio are a huge time sink.
• Passive vs. active response: Some forms almost guarantee a response, while others you just get silence.
• Lite vs. Bandwidth intensive: Again, back to audio and video, these require a fast connection and unlimited Internet for both upload and consumption.

An open question for me is how effective are these various forms? Is going to the trouble of producing an elaborate video going to result in a greater payoff than posting a photo off your cell phone? I’m not sure about the answers on this. My intuition, and I could be dead wrong, is that video and audio are not very effective. They are costly, labor-intensive and you turn readers into passive consumers. In the case of YouTube, the things that are shared are funny or scandalous. Both of those things can be positives if you’re trying to ridicule corruption or hypocrisy for example. But in general, they tend to be just mindless entertainment and titillation.

I’m convinced that a well presented photo can be far more effective than a long text-heavy post. And a similar category is doodles and comics. For one thing, these are a relief to the endless stream of words that we’re flooded with. And for another thing, visual arts are easily shareable and are concise, usually making one point in an attractive way.

There is of course a lot of crossover between blogging and mobile media which is part of the reason I do it. What can we learn about communication and information exchange through social media? The analogy has serious limitations however and applying them blindly to the developing world would be a mistake.

Choose to focus on the positive in Africa

Choose to focus on the positive in Africa, originally uploaded by mozifoto.

Doodle by David

Como saber quando já engoliram a mensagem

Ainda bem dizer que já temos uma mensagem nossa espalhada em todas as províncias de Moçambique. Mas qual é o próprio impacto desta mensagem? Bem me lembro visitando o quintal de um amigo na aldeia. E eu vi um bonito livro de Visão Mundial com o tópico de como melhorar a colheita na machamba.

Tani, xamwali, livulo lin’phata basa? (Olá, amigo, é útil aquele livro?)

Inde, lina ndzeru kwene-kwene! (Sim, tem muita sabedoria.)

Tsono, ndzeru iyi muli kucita? (Mas, estás fazendo esta sabedoria?)

Nee, xamwali… (Não, amigo… )

As consequências deste abismo entre a disponibilidade de informação e a aplicação de informação deve ser grande fonte de preocupação na luta contra a ignorância.

Pensando na futura promoção de informação em três grandes áreas de Bíblia, alfabetização e desenvolvimento, seria bonito encorajar as pessoas em escrever música original como forma de promover as mensagens críticas para o desenvolvimento do nosso país. Em primeiro lugar estou pensando em concursos regionais para artistas que possam através da sua música levar estas mensagens até o lar de cada família. Prémios podiam ser ou dinheiro ou instrumentos musicais ou tempo no estúdio. Uma compilação anual das melhoras canções seria outro meio de espalhar a semente no campo das ideias.

Running music contests for message promotion

Put this down in the “Thinking out loud” category…

In Mozambique, we’ve identified three major categories of information that we hope to make accessible to Mozambicans: Scripture, literacy and development. But what do we mean by accessible? Is a flyer in the gutter accessible? Is an unopened book on the shelf accessible? At what point are we able to claim that people have “accessed” the promoted information? One way is singing and dancing. When a message makes it on the radio it is very often heard by thousands of people in heavy rotation, especially when it is a rare recording in one of the many languages spoken in Mozambique. For example, to this day, Rádio Moçambique in Tete plays very old recordings of the late Lazaro Vinho 1 2 who was known for his mbira playing as well as his social message. A more contemporary example is Niassa province band, Massukos, who use their talents to promote simple sanitation practices like hand-washing and water purification.

All this to say that rather than wait for people to hopefully absorb our messages and turn them into music we could proactively encourage musicians to adopt those messages as subjects for their art. A music contest would be a simple way to motivate musicians to give their best in putting together original music in Mozambican languages. Prizes could include cash, music equipment or studio time. Tying these contests to “espectáculos” in provincial and district capitols would give plenty of opportunity for cross-merchandising and public awareness.

I would also suggest a yearly “Best Of” album featuring music in these three categories or even three albums. Pay-off would improve over time especially if you were able to give continuity to this movement through repeat efforts year after year.

What’s wrong with the Mambo-Mano

Well, the price is right. It’s $29 at Fry’s right now. And it does it all: plays mp3, wma, videos (if you convert them to its proprietary format) and it has many interface languages.

But this thing is very Mickey Mouse. The interface is quite non-intuitive. The pdf that explains how to use it requires the Chinese font (11 Mb download) otherwise you get to view 9 blank pages. Even when you’ve got the English it is written by someone who might be good with gadgets but less so with the English language.

The screen is pretty nice. I haven’t had a chance to check out the battery life.

The killer on this is the internal speaker. It is too quiet. I mean waaaaaaay too quiet. I sat it next to the Zen Stone and couldn’t even hear it with both of them blaring on full blast. That’s not very useful if you’re hoping to spread a message beyond one person listening to earphones.

And another thing that doesn’t work for me is the text reader. Although I like the way you can dump folders of text files in it and have it read them I’m seeing a lot of weird characters and the text is hard to read on the swirly blue background.

Well, I don’t think this is a very good option for mobile media in the developing world but my son said he wants to buy it from me so it looks like we’ll have it around the house for a while longer. I’ll let you know if I learn anything else.

Check out the original post showing all the gadgets I’m considering: Gadgets for development

Gadgets for development

I’m so scared to get into this topic because it is huge. But I do want to share some of my thoughts regarding characteristics of an ideal gadget for mobile media.

Here are a variety of potential mobile media gadgets. Which one is right for the job?

From top to bottom we have:

1. A pink Motorola Helomoto

2. A blue Creative Zen Stone

3. A silver Kaser Mambo-Mano

4. A white Nokia 5300 Xpress

5. A black Palm T|X

I’m going to run through the list and give you some advantages and disadvantages of these gadgets and tell you what kinds of applications they might be suited for. Let’s kick it off with…

1. Ugly in Pink

Motorola HeloMoto cell phone

I really have nothing positive to say about this phone. It is the color of pink cake frosting. The sound is awful. You can’t hook it up to your computer without purchasing special software. Java apps are so slow as to be almost worthless. And it’s a locked phone working only with an over-priced North American Cingular contract. I kid you not, I paid $30 last month to download 3Mb of data. Once I go back to Africa in January this phone is going in the garbage. Oh, and in case you wonder how I like flashing around a hot pink phone, I don’t. I dished out for a black cover to at least make it slightly less awful.

Mobile media applications: Glacial web browsing in the US at a premium price.

2. The Blue Singer

2Gb Creative Zen Stone mp3 player

This one is brand new so I haven’t had much time to play with it but already my wife tried to snag it. First thing she asked was, “Does it have a clip so I can wear it on my job bra?” Answer: yes. I bought the Zen Stone because of two reasons. First, it has an internal speaker so this would make a great media player for playing mp3s to an assembled group. In Africa it’s a common sight to see people gathered around a radio playing a scratchy barely intelligible music and news. The Zen Stone is loud enough for an entire family or even a church group to hear recordings of radio dramas for development, Scripture readings, or music. The second reason I bought this is that the interface is dead simple. One big dial for selecting tracks and adjusting volume and another button for turning on the audio speaker. Biggest surprise? This thing has user interfaces in a score of languages making it a great choice for Africa. The USB works great for charging and transferring files between the Zen Stone and your computer. Disadvantages: Your wife might steal it.

Mobile media applications: All purpose audio player with internal speaker, microphone and dead simple interface.

3. The Silver Bullet

Kaser Mambo-Mano

OK, so I bought this one because it’s cheap. $29 at Fry’s Electronics. And the generic brand makes me think that you could contact the manufacturer in China and import a massive number of these into Africa. Although I haven’t had a lot of time to play with this there are a couple of things I like. First, it’s an mp3 player with internal speaker and microphone. Second, it’s a video player although in this case you have to convert every video to the proprietary format for this gadget. Third, it’s an ebook reader, basically allowing you to display text files (although I haven’t confirmed that it displays Unicode.)

Mobile media applications: A true multimedia player that could hold an entire library of development and literacy information in audio, video and text formats.

4. The White Knight

Nokia 5300 Xpress

Dang I love the Xpress. On top of playing and recording just about every type of media, it’s a really hardy cell phone. The one pictured worked great until someone spilled a glass of lemonade on it! Now the backlighting periodically goes out. I mean I love this thing. It has a pretty sizeable memory chip that comes with it and you can add more. If I could wave my magic wand I’d stick one of these in every pocket in Africa and let the mobile media revolution begin! I heard recently that Nokia is developing a special line of phones for Africa and one of them is an Xpress. Groovy!

Mobile media applications: It does it all. A savvy user could post to Flickr (I’ve done it) or WordPress (That too) or record and upload podcasts (Piece of cake) in addition to cruising the web and using the onboard web, email and IM applications (although I prefer Opera Mini).

5. The Black Sheep

Palm T|X

OK, I know that Palm’s are about as hip as an 8-track, but I love this thing. It’s not a phone but it has built in wireless and Bluetooth and is an all around terrific media player. A built in speaker, expandable memory, a touch screen and pretty simple interface. I love it. I’m sorry to see this go the way of the Dodo bird but it continues to be a nice gadget that I use for web surfing, mp3 and ebook reading.

Mobile media applications: A pretty geeky gadget without a lot of options for use in the developing world. It doesn’t even use a standard USB cable. Nice big screen and pretty decent battery life.

Conclusions

Well, that’s a quick roundup of some gadgets that I’m playing with. I will be returning to the Zen Stone and the Mambo-Mano in the coming days after I’ve had a chance to play with them more. My goal isn’t to settle on one particular product for every need but rather draw up some specifications for the different applications, especially in Africa.

Think about this: for the price of an iPhone I could buy ten Mambo-Manos and put them in the hands of Africans who would share the contents (ebooks, audio resources, instructional videos) with everyone in their village. The question though isn’t how we get ten of them into Africa. It’s how do we get a million of them. And fill them with the right kind of data that is going to make an impact on people’s lives. Stay tuned as I’ll be thinking out loud on those topics more.

epub and Adobe Digital Editions

I have been researching ways to share commercial electronic books. One of the systems that seems widely used is .epub which originally came from Adobe Digital Editions but appears to have expanded to XO Laptops, the iPhone, and other non-proprietary readers. I’ve been wanting members of my team to read a book and it looks like I could buy the digital editon and share it with up to six machines. So ostensibly six of us could be reading a $10 book. Would that work?