Good morning all!
Based upon feedback from our last Block Watch meeting, I am working on one of the projects this week…. Communication
I love the lifehacker.com website, and this post from 2010 inspired me http://lifehacker.com/5506326/how-can-i-send-an-email-via-text-message
So I have a couple ideas running in my head, and testing those theories. I have also started a twitter account based upon a short version of our current group name http://twitter.com/SoHudBW
In the meeting, we talked about a communication tree. The idea was to allow members of the group to instantly share suspicious activity with the rest. We started out talking about a phone tree, but with the use of technology we could do one better by sending Text Messages and Emails. There seems to be a large enough percentage of neighbors that have instant access to email and text, but we also need to be cognizant of our neighbors who would rather receive a quick phone call with important information. While this last requirement cannot be solved by technology without a monetary cost, we can create a list of who prefers email/text and form a phone tree at the same time. I am working on the logistics and testing the email/text option.
What i have so far:
- Google Voice users cannot send to more than 5 recipients per text message (update: nor can google voice send to email address)
- Testing SMS to Email and Email to SMS on phone carrier systems
- Testing Twitter @recipient codes (update: @reply only shows up in mentions, not directly on the SoHudBW feed. However, I get notified when mentioned and should be able to retweet so can show message on SoHudBW page.)
- Toying with idea to create an RSS feed on the site, but thinking about how to maintain security and allow group members update the feed. possibly a PHP/form page with a user database (want to keep it easy to use, but also needs to be secure so that random user in Asia etc. cannot send us text messages)
Will keep you updated