A few days ago I did a pretty lengthy write up about Mozeo and why I believed it was a suitable replacement for TXTMob at least with regard to using it to stay connected at the various events I (we) attend. A perfect test of Mozeo was the upcoming ASAE Great Ideas Conference on December 8th and 9th in Orlando at the Disney Yacht and Beach Club Resort.

Shortly after I posted, Maddie sent a shout out to the Blogoclump asking if we were going to try to do group texting at the event and I offered to set up a Mozeo group to facilitate the Backchannel for the event, which the group concurred that it was worth trying. I immediately went to the site to set the group up and immediately ran into problems. Setting up an individual account was easy enough and even creating the group was pretty simple but from there the challenges started to mount.

First, when I went to send a test text message to the group my message failed telling me that I wasn’t a member of the group. It took me a few hours of experimenting to figure out that even as the group administrator I still had to “join” the group to send messages which is pretty counterintuitive. Next, as I was working through the issues, I thought I would send a note to their support email address which on the site is proudly listed as 24/7, but over 24 hours later I still haven’t received a response. After 12 hours I knew there was little likelihood that I’d hear anything so I knew that Mozeo wasn’t all it appeared to be.

I managed to experiment my way through the system and did eventually get it working, but I can’t say that I am completely pleased with the results. First, what I initially thought was an inclusive service appears to be a bit limited to the big four carriers: Verizon, ATT/Cingular, T-Mobile, and Sprint/Nextel. Not a show stopper as the majority of people in the U.S. are on one of these networks. However, it still could cause issues. Second, there was no way to easily distinguish who the messages were coming from (a big problem that we had with TXTmob) either on the device or on the web. Again, if we wanted status quo we could simply stay with TXTmob, but my goal in doing all of this was improvement and inclusion. Third, the lack of support, is concerning. I would venture that if this was a service that had a bright future they would take support seriously. Finally, the supposedly intuitive and robust web interface, after using it a while wasn’t what I had hoped it would be.

All said, Mozeo appears to be all flash and no dash. It had a lot of great features and looked like it could have been a real player in this vertical but obviously it was something that has either been abandoned or has a very small staff that simply can’t handle support, development and growing the business. Obviously, I feel like I have a bit of egg on my face but I also see it as a pretty powerful lesson that can be shared in this age of start-ups and niche providers. Due diligence is a business imperative, especially if you are planning on implementing something across an organization or enterprise.

Because I love a good challenge I immediately renewed my search for another viable replacement solution. I started with the list of contenders listed in my posting and found a few that looked promising. Remembering that my key criteria were:

• Cost (it had to be free), accessibility (it had to be widely accessible across numerous platforms and service providers)
• Richness of features (being able to support sending individual and group messages, the creation of groups and possibly integrate with other services - other social networks, IM, etc.)
• Ease of use (it should do what it proports and do it well with a minimal learning curve)
• Simple join process (in this day and age there is no reason why anyone should have to go through a multi-step join process simply to participate)

Those guidelines made it easy to run through the list and identify those services that met the criteria. None of them met every requirement exactly two of them did meet most and appeared to be well supported: 3Jam and Kiboze. I liked the look of both of them and all things being equal their functionality was quite similar, but something made Kiboze seem infinitely easier to use.

Launched in 2006, Kiboze extends your instant messaging experience with group text messaging.
Kiboze has built patent-pending technology that integrates text messaging with the major IM networks like AOL, MSN, Yahoo! and GTalk creating unique functionality that allows Kiboze users to use their existing “buddylists” as a phone book for “group send” text messaging.

It works by either importing an existing buddy list from one of the aforementioned IM networks or through their portal, either way it’s a pretty simple process. Minutes after I signed-up and confirmed my phone number I was able to use my phone to create a group.

This process was simple to do (just txt the command: create, group name, and the password to secure the group to Kiboze. To create the Great Ideas Conference group I texted the command: create GIC07 pwd123 to 35350. Flawless. It worked on the first try without leaving me guessing and quickly. I received immediate confirmation that the group was created. So far so good!

With regard to joining the group, all users have to do is text the command connect, group name, and password to Kiboze. So to join the Great Ideas Conference chat, you would simply text: connect GIC07 pwd123 to 35350. This was a painpoint with Mozeo so I was pleased to find out that I didn’t have to do anything additional as the group admin as I was already part of the group.

The other actions you can take are well documented on their website. Here is a quick overview, but some explanation is necessary so take a look at the details:

Group create - create group name pwd
Group connect - connect group name pwd
Group shout - shout group name
Block - block specific number
Logon - logon
Logoff - logoff

I am anxious to experiment with this service. Based on doing some additional research on some other blogs and meta-news sites, it looks to deliver exactly what it promises.

If you want to join the Association Backchannel for the 2007 Great Ideas Conference pull out your cell phone and send the following message to 35350: connect GIC07 pwd123. And if you want to unleash the full power of Kiboze, head to their site after joining the group and register.

If you have questions or problems let me know in the comments.

As I begin my annual end of year reflection process on where I have been, what I have done and how much I have learned a number of experiences stand out in my mind as formative, influential, or just plain fun. One in particular, the ASAE Annual Conference in Chicago demonstrated just how powerful technology can be to connect multiple people in multiple locations all at the same time. This experience came to be known as the Association Backchannel and by using our mobile phones those that participated were able to share our learning experiences, find out where everybody was and make arrangements to meet up on the fly.

The platform chosen to facilitate the exchange was appropriately enough TXTmob. TXTmob was developed by the Institute for Applied Autonomy for protesters at the in Boston and the Republican National Convention in New York and was a huge success. It continues to be offered by Tad Hirsch, a researcher at MIT’s Smart Cities Group as a free service. Tad is also coordinating a long overdue upgrade (hopefully to address some of the inconsistencies that me and others in the group experienced as well as to add some new features and refresh the web UI).

A few really cool things about txtMob was that the group administrator could create groups and control who could/couldn’t participate (not that we had restrictive policies, but it is a great feature) in the Mob. An added benefit was the ability to participate in the mob from the web and the fact that the transcript was archived for later reference.

My only complaint about the whole experience using txtMob was the fact that as a Verizon Wireless customer using a MotorolaQ SmartPhone I was unable to participate because for one reason or another either due to my phone, Verizon or the software itself using SMS. I could use the browser on the phone in a pinch if I wanted to send a message and I was able to receive messages flawlessly, but being unable to use it the way it was designed to be used defeated the purpose and took a lot of the fun out of the experience.

The vexing aspect of my problem was a colleague: BMart, had the same phone on the same provider and had no problems whatsoever. However, I also heard complaints from folks that had Blackberry’s experienced similar challenges, so I promised myself that the next time we gathered en enmasse I would help find a few other viable solutions that worked for all people, or at least as many people as possible. I guess the experiment was getting a bit more formal. Accessibility, security and ease of use all became essential requirements.

One solution that I recently stumbled upon was a service called Mozeo. Mozeo leapt on to the scene in 2005 in the hopes of capitalizing on the mobile phone craze by converging the worlds of chat, blogs and text messaging in the mobile environment. Their flagship product Mozeo Go Groups, essentially a mobile chatroom, is mobile group text messaging made easy. The basic premise is that you sign-up, create a group and start sending messages. You send a message and everybody receives it, someone responds and you and everybody else receives it. It’s that simple and it allows you to communicate with your entire circle of friends from your mobile phone.

For comparison sake there are a few other players in this space that are also worth looking at including: Swarm-it, Zemble, Kiboze, 3jam, and Dodgeball. Even one of my favorite persistent presence applications Twitter has similar functionality but, at least in my opinion, Twitter excels in one-to-many messaging as opposed to the more specialized one to few offered by applications like Mozeo. It’s not a matter of it being good or bad, rather just knowing what tool is most appropriate for what you want to accomplish.

If you are looking for group text messaging that is simple and effective Mozeo may be exactly what you are looking for. Mozeo: http://www.mozeo.com.

Until recently, text messaging or more accurately SMS, was primarily the territory of teens (the Internet Generation) and twenty-somethings (Generation Y). There are exceptions to this generational generalization (here also), but for all intents and purposes those who are using it either belong to the groups referenced previously or been among a group of early adopters, interested in the implications of new methods and manners of communication and collaboration.

Thanks to tools like Twitter, Dodgeball, Jaiku, Pownce, blabto, and Kadoink, texting has gone from a phenomenon of the few to a communications method of the many. The Association Bloggers (largely comprised of Gen-Xers) demonstrated this in the txtmob backchannel experiment at the ASAE Annual Conference this year in Chicago. Text messaging could be used for true collaboration and almost real-time information exchange. I was among those that used texting for strictly utilitarian purposes until this experiment, but now I use it for a myriad of purposes, not least of which is staying connected to many new friends and colleagues that I met through or at the conference.

Further evidence that text messaging has reached, or moved beyond, the Tipping Point, was offered this past Sunday, when Yahoo! announced that SMS capability would be integrated into its Yahoo! Mail application as part of a larger overhaul, in an attempt to make it “more of a social application.

So know that we know, or at least have more proof, that texting is here to stay and has many practical applications beyond the most obvious, the bigger question becomes how do we leverage it in the association world to connect associations to our members and our members to each other? What steps do we have to take to make sure that it’s used effectively to create or derive additional member value? Many questions, no doubt, but many great opportunities as well.

Update: Thanks to a comment from Lisa Junker, I remembered that I actually had planned on sharing some great examples of how different industries are using Twitter. This list is not all-inclusive so feel free to add your own in the comments.

• Reporting
• Business
• Higher Education
• Productivity
• Affiliate Marketing
• Professional
• Marketing
• Using it for Good
• Life Saving
• Other Ideas: Here and Here