Wireless Web Uber-Users

The recent Pew Internet & American Life Project report on Wireless Internet Access paints a picture of a growing base of heavily connected, well educated, and higher-income Americans who are connected to the web from everywhere.

One of the interesting demographic facts in this report is that these uber-users are much less white than are wired internet users. While 79% of all other internet users are white, only 67% of wireless web users are white. Blacks and Hispanics make up almost twice the percentage of wireless web users than they do of "all other" web users. Is the cutting edge color-blind? Wouldn't that be nice?

Growth in wireless web use has doubled in two years, from 10% in January of 2005 to 19% now. Is your organization planning to make its content available to these new faster-paced, wealthier users? Check The Weather Channel to see the tools they have available.

Nonprofits can benefit from this trend. Obvious examples include those with a physical presence who can attract visitors (churches, museums, etc.) or who need to mobilize crowds in a hurry. Preparing web pages for use by cell phones and PDA's isn't easy, however. According to Wikipedia, "The Mobile Web primarily utilises lightweight pages written in Extensible Hypertext Markup Language (XHTML) or Wireless Markup Language (WML) to deliver content to mobile devices." If you think there is some potential for your organization, it's worth the 10 minutes it will take to read the entire Wikipedia entry. Then, point your favorite developer to W3C's Mobile Web Initiative.

If you're already delivering content to mobile web users, please txt us or email us and tell us what you're doing.

Rick...

Great use of video in a personal fundraising page

Rob Prisament is a long-time friend and colleague who works at March of Dimes. He has a great personal page on their fund-raising site that includes a video (hosted at YouTube). It also has a very touching letter from the parents of a premature child.

Rob's ability to poke fun at himself (he's actually a much nattier dresser than he appears in his video) and his willingness to display it to the world deserve your attention, and maybe a small gift (call it online donor cultivation research).

Rick...

Collecting email addresses is a valid part of growing a nonprofit list. "Michael L." (whose profile I can't find) posted to Care2's Frogloop blog with a complaint that political campaigns are beginning "what might be a growing trend of adding email address to a mailing list without allowing the user to choose whether to opt-in or opt-out of the list." He explains that if one signs a petition on many web sites, one is automatically added to the candidate's email list.

He goes on to quote the DMA's Ethics guidelines saying "you should provide choices of opting out online." (Note that I can't find that quote in the link he provides, but maybe it's somewhere in the DMA's site).

We don't think this is a deceptive practice at all. We think it's normal, standard, and acceptable. If nonprofits practice CAN-SPAM compliance, then in the very first email a petition signer gets, there will be an opt-out or unsubscribe option. (For more on CAN-SPAM see our article.)

We've even talked to nonprofits (including some in the NonProfit Times Top 100) that don't add online donors to their email lists because their donation page didn't have a specific opt-in checkbox. Ridiculous, we say. A donor wants to know what you're doing with her money. She can opt out when she gets the thank-you email, or at any time after that.

So go ahead and test all of the email capture techniques you can. And yes, of course, honor the right of the subscriber to opt out in every email.

Rick...