Only the Feds can move this slowly

Today's New York Times reports that Federal regulators have approved a plan to allow text messages to be transmitted to all cell phones in the US in the event of natural disaster, terror attack, or kidnapped child. The last line of the article says, "The service could be in place by 2010."

No doubt federal bureaucrats will spend the next few years creating flowcharts and finding a way to tax us for this service. As we all know, a federal project with a two-year time frame has a high likelihood of coming to fruition about the time cell phones are replaced with the next technology.

The wacky thing is, the process already works. What do they need to implement? I've already signed up at USGS.gov to get major earthquake notifications sent to my cell phone. The weather channel sends me storm alerts based on my zip code. And I don't really want to know every Amber Alert in the US (though I would likely subscribe to a service that broadcast Amber Alerts that correspond to my current GPS location).

Where are you supporters - right now?

The new "Loopt" application, currently available on some Sprint and Boost phones, uses phone's GPS abilities to display your position graphically on a map on the cell phone's display -- and on the displays of your friends who use the application. Sure, you can now find out "who else is at the mall" as Loopt pitches the service ($2.99 per month), but think of the applications in the nonprofit world:

Locate potential visitors to your museum, church, etc. and guide them to you;
Attract fellow activists to the rally;
Encourage supporters to meet the candidate;
Pinpoint the location of today's blood drive;
Follow your teammates on the bike-a-thon;

Cell phone companies, according to an article in the Washington Post, are eager to recoup some of the money they've invested in meeting federal requirements to provide precise positioning along with 911 calls. So they're finding fun ways to package the information and sell it to subscribers.

The result is potential for nonprofits beyond the obvious. It also provides a real-time authenticity to web activism and fundraising. And it's new, hip and cool. So who's using it? Let us know.