Beerud Sheth spoke about the immense opportunity of SMS (text messaging) technology in his home country of India. He stated that there were 3.5 billion SMS users, as compared to 1.4 million Internet users in the world, which he states is the most widely adopted technology. In his home country of India, the disparity is even larger. There are 30 million Internet users, compared to 300 million SMS subscribers. With the use of mobile handsets being much more used then other communication technologies in other countries, he stated that there is a huge market for these users. The parallel of innovation on the technology pyramid as he states, has rich content cell phones such as the iPhone and T-Mobile G1 at the top of the pyramid, with the much broader base of the pyramid including normal brick and flip mobile handsets. Sheth decided to open GupShup, which is chitchat in Hindi, in which any mobile SMS user can create a group and invite friends to the group via their cell phone. It is one to many broadcasting, micro blogging, and user generated text messages all built into this service. He states that it is Twitter for India. His service has generated 12 million users, with 500 million messages a month in India. Instead of using the web in India, most people use the cell phone , in which he states is the lowest common denominator medium. He basically states that there is another web beyond the Web, and the Web 2.0 developers should start developing content for other devices, not just the Internet.
Jesse Robbins spoke about how Web 2.0 is transforming humanitarian aid. He basically stated that those who are inexperienced in technology are excited, and those who are experienced are scared. For example, people saying Twitter can help emergency systems are saying it can work, and the emergency professionals are weary of this new technology. The four steps to disaster innovation are 1.) disaster, 2.) ad hoc innovation, 3.) championship, and 4.) take what was learned from disaster and distribute it broadly.
He decided to go to the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and help work for World Shelters building makeshift homes for displaced refugees. The challenge came with the I-90 bridge being destroyed and Red Cross not knowing that Google Maps was real time, thus creating the impression that the bridge was still intact. Mikel Maron came in and became the champion by using Open Street Map, which Robbins stated was the Wikipedia of maps online and fixing this. He created better maps for humanitarian aid and also for everyone. He concludes his presentation stating that non-profit organizations need help from Web 2.0 companies in order to help out many kinds of disasters that we face. In order to do this they must serve those that serve others, and make a difference through better technology.
The two speakers were very different in that they talked about completely different things. While Sheth spoke of social media for SMS, Robbins talked about how Web 2.0 could help for the better good of society. I did not intend for this to happen, but anyway, I thought both presenters were very effective in their message. I thought Sheth’s message was more important because EVERYONE uses text messaging. While many people do not have computers with broadband access, mostly everyone has a cell phone with text messaging capabilities. I believe this is a business model that Web 2.0 innovators can use here in the states to their advantage.
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