SMS Petition Against the War on Iraq
Thomas just sent me an email about his latest post, a SMS-based petition against the war on Iraq:
petition-irak.com is St�phane's great idea! For all you non-French speaking people, this is an SMS-based petition against the War in Iraq. You can send an SMS message to a 5-digit number with your opinion and it will be listed on the site. This is a fantastic application of SMS, and St�phane got the idea while reading Howard Rheingold's Smart Mobs. I've just ordered my own copy from Amazon :-) The SMS part was implemented with the help of K-Mobile, a French company with a great experience of all things mobile.
This is a fantastic use of SMS. Instead of a non-verifiable email address petition where emails can be spoofed, this is a verifiable way to send your thoughts to a poll/petition to be visible by all. Wonderful.
From a non-technical perspective, the whole world knows that France is against the war so this is sort of preaching to the choir. What I really wish is that my compatriots in the U.S. would stop drinking the Republican kool-aid and start thinking rationally about starting a war. War is bad. Peace is good.
-Russ