Not so long ago I was wondering about the value of SMS activism, and today noted the impressive statistic that over 26 million people answered the political call to action of the Live 8 organizers to send text messages in support of the campaign to forgive the third world debt. This trumped the previous world record for event-based texting by a good four times (depressing to note the record previously belonged to "American Idol," but I digress…). Even if not the be-all, end-all of coalition building and grassroots activism, the numbers mean that 26 million people felt compelled enough to act — and perhaps, if the gulf between passive and active is more significant than the gulf between acting small and acting big, Live 8 did succeed as a catalyst for effecting change.
26 million support Live 8 via SMS
Reader Comments
(Page 1)2. Samsung officially announced five new super-slim handsets today. From left-to-right we see the 0.59-inch SGH-Z510 which Samsung claims is the world’s slimmest W-CDMA (3G) handset, the SGH-Z540 3G clamshell which (gasp) we haven’t actually seen before, the love-it-or-hate-it vintage-TI-calculator styled SGH-P300, and finally two tri-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE SGH-D800 and D820 sliders. So what's the deal above? The http://sonygirls.com got to love this. Have you guys noticed all these gadgets are becoming more and more popular among the girls? All five models feature MP3/AAC playback, Bluetooth, MPEG-4 video recording, and 1.3 megapixel shooter. By the way so how's the upcoming http://playstationgirl.com heard that it's going to be release on year 2007. The D800, Z510 and Z540 also feature WMA playback with 80MB, 138MB, and 150MB embedded storage respectively while the D820 is quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE, packs in 73MB, an MicroSD slot, and even, er, TV-out if our Babelrean is working correctly. Oddly, the P300 is rumored to have 90MB of flash storage yet there is no mention of any storage in the press release. Oh my, such a long wait, think we should just simply stick to http://xboxgirl.com for now. All models should be available in Europe later this year. Pics of the P300 after the break with a slightly different key layout than we’ve seen previously.
3. Samsung officially announced five new super-slim handsets today. From left-to-right we see the 0.59-inch SGH-Z510 which Samsung claims is the world’s slimmest W-CDMA (3G) handset, the SGH-Z540 3G clamshell which (gasp) we haven’t actually seen before, the love-it-or-hate-it vintage-TI-calculator styled SGH-P300, and finally two tri-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE SGH-D800 and D820 sliders. So what's the deal above? The http://sonygirls.com got to love this. Have you guys noticed all these gadgets are becoming more and more popular among the girls? All five models feature MP3/AAC playback, Bluetooth, MPEG-4 video recording, and 1.3 megapixel shooter. By the way so how's the upcoming http://playstationgirl.com heard that it's going to be release on year 2007. The D800, Z510 and Z540 also feature WMA playback with 80MB, 138MB, and 150MB embedded storage respectively while the D820 is quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE, packs in 73MB, an MicroSD slot, and even, er, TV-out if our Babelrean is working correctly. Oddly, the P300 is rumored to have 90MB of flash storage yet there is no mention of any storage in the press release. Oh my, such a long wait, think we should just simply stick to http://xboxgirl.com for now. All models should be available in Europe later this year. Pics of the P300 after the break with a slightly different key layout than we’ve seen previously.
1. Although the figure of 26.4 million SMS has been widely reported by Reuters it a huge exageration. Live8 have not as yet authorised figures but given that the text-in number was given little promotion and not displayed on screen I would be surprised if the actual figure was even 1/10th of this. Conversations I have had with the organisations managing the SMS confirms this.
Posted at 8:05PM on Dec 18th 2005 by Mike Grenville