Per our usual activities here, we occasionally check out processes and software which would be relevant to the #mobmin (mobile ministry) world. A question for many groups is the process of making a mobile application, and so we definitely like to take a look at the various application creation platforms that are out there to get an idea of what’s needed in terms of graphical, technological, and marketing knowledge to get things up and running. The latest of these development platforms we are looking at is the biNu platform.
biNu is a software delivery platform. Think, something like an app store – but optimized for feature phones (non-smartphones). When there is an opportunity for an engagement to be accented with a mobile app on a (most likely) Java-based mobile, biNu is positioned through its delivery platform to refactor your RSS feeds or any other custom (mobile-lite) page content into a downloadable application for these mobiles.
We took a look at it from the perspective of a content owner who’s looking to gain a presence on feature phones (its a good idea to read Should Our Church Have an App or Mobile Website prior to this). Therefore, our most important places of entry happen through the biNu Dev portal (still in beta – this comes up again).
Note: the screenshots and activity here were performed on a Windows 7 laptop using the Google Chrome browser. For the benefit of the impression, this is an imposed boundary to using the product.
Step 1: Registering for at the biNU Developer Portal
As with similar services, you have to go through a short process to register for the biNU developer portal (http://developer.binu.com/). After filling out the form, you get a confirmation screen noting that you need to complete a step in your email in order to complete the process. Nice and simple in this respect.
Step 2: Navigating
Once you login, you are presented a straight-forward list of what you’d want to do: List Apps (see all the apps you’ve built), or create a new Basic or regular app. First up on my listing was to do the Basic App (this would most likely be the used option for 1st time users of this service).
Step 3: The Basic App Wizard
Once you get into the Basic App creation wizard, you simply just add the title and description to your app. You do need three graphic files here. Though the sizes were specified, I noticed in the test view that all of them seemed to be resized fine. I’d recommend here not using anything smaller than the recommendation, and you will need to ensure that its a PNG graphic w/o transparency for best effect.
You will also need the URL for the RSS feeds that you would use to populate the app. I took our raw feed, in addition to our Twitter feed and the Twitter feed for the #mobmin hashtag (we’ve done this previously with other apps) and there seemed to be no issue with either of those kinds of sources.
Step 4: Testing/Further Edits
biNu offers a Java-based emulator that gives you an impression of how your content will flow to the smaller screen and different input controls of a feature phone. On the PC that I used, I didn’t update the Java client in order for this to work properly (but you would probably want to do this).
Step 5: Publishing
Once you have created and tested your app in the emulator, next is to publish it. There are two avenues for publishing – the first puts the app on the biNu platform “store” where those who’ve downloaded biNu would be able to search and download it among other similar apps/services. The second avenue is for you to generate the app yourself using biNU, and then use publish that app on your website or wider-serving app stores such as GetJar.
When you choose the option to generate an app, you are taken to a screen that’s similar to the app wizard where you refine the details about your app. What’s most interesting here is that you see the option to generate either a “regular” Java app (ideally, compatible with most Java mobiles) or an Android java app (an apk, compatible with Android devices). Apps can be unsigned or signed using Verisign or Thawte. Again, good options for an app which could be distributed in an open market environment.
Generating the app was the only point in the process where I entered an issue that I had to escalate to biNu directly. As of this writing, this is something being looked at.
Step 6: All Done, Go Build Some More
Once you’ve finished making your app (testing, publishing, and generating Java versions), you are pretty much done. As seen in the publishing step, you’ve been given a URL with which to publicize the app (I’d recommend using a URL shortening service like TinyURL or Bit.ly to make it smaller, more share-friendly, and easier to add to marketing materials). View/Download the 1st MMM biNu app.
Conclusions:
Overall, using the biNu app wizard enabled me to build an app in less than 30min. When I went back through the process to build an app from scratch (see Step 2: Navigating), the process took even less time because the source for the app was an existing mobile website (in this case, our alternate mobile site which is written using HTML5 and jQuery). Given the speed and costs (free) to just get on their platform, this isn’t a bad idea for many sites. I’d like to know how some of the more interactive content offerings would fare here – for example, those doing church online might want this for a presence, but the experience of viewing media on a 2.2in screen that’s not optimized for such “snack time” viewing might be a turn off in some respects. Still, there’s some sense that could be made from doing this and perhaps pointing to your YouTube feed of content.
For more information about biNU, do check out their website. Again, the developer section of the site is in beta right now, so if you enter into any issues with it, do chalk it up to that aspect of things. Still, there aren’t too many mobile services specifically targeting feature phones (more people use these than smartphones by a very wide margin). If your content is ready to go, then biNu should be ready for you.
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E-Book Review: Digital Activism Decoded
Wednesday, July 7th, 2010One of the nice things about being on an airplane is the time that you get to sit back and engage a good book. There had been a book sitting on my iPad for sometime and the recent trip to the Uplinq Conference gave a good opportunity to not only read it, but to find some things to reflect upon with it. The (e)book is titled Digital Activism Decoded and it was just under 300 pages (PDF) of a realistic look into the tools and realities of digital activism, asking the hard question of if it is really something new, or just an enhancement on older methods with a few electronic wrinkles.
While the book is pretty lengthy and deep in respect towards how the topic of digital activism is covered, I found it refreshing that there were several authors writing throughout the project. Mary Joyce is the primary author and the person who pulled together much of the project, but very quickly after the introduction we are introduced to people such as Trebor Scholz, Brannon Cullum, Katharine Brodock, and many others who lend their specific expertise to paint the picture of the methods and behaviors of activism, and how digital tools have lent their ears and feet to a new generation of activists.
The first section (Contexts: The Digital Activism Movement) sheds light on the transformations happening within activism including the fast-evolving technological infrastructure, computer and social networks, and economic/social/political environmental factors.
The second section (Practices: Digital Actions in the Aggregate dives more into the the matters of ecology and sociology. I have to admit that here is where Digital Activism began to pick up the pace in terms of content depth and internal motivations. Reading through some of these summarized case studies and perspectives, and the analysis of how these are threaded within one another under digital activism provoked me to put down the iPad several times and simply consider my own actions and perceptions. There is a world out there of stories and each one in uniquely told and applied.
The third and final section (Effects: What is Digital Activism’s Value) speaks towards the honest question of “how do we measure the success of a digital campaign or tools?” It is very easy to state that there is an effectiveness to using a digtial medium over an analog or previous media state (print, radio, TV, internet), but there has not been so long a pracice of digital living that best practices and reusable methods are easy to come by. Yes, we should not underestimate that digital platforms are effective, but trumpeting them over well-researched and proven methods (depending on the context) might not be advisiable. This section also engages the reader to understand advocacy and activism in specific behavioral contexts such as bloggers in prison, mobile/social media in politics, and communication overload.
All in all, I found Digital Activism Decoded an engaging and even re-centering reading. I probably would have done well to take more than the 12hrs total of flying to read it, but I knew going into it that it was the kind of reading that would require healthy moments of reflection, and some eventual response.
For those in your communities who are inticed by the idea of using digital tools as a part of an activism or advocacy campaign, Digital Activism Decoded should rank high on your list in respect to being great resource material, and a means of self-checking. There’s a verse of Scripture which says something similar to, “knowing the times and the seasons, and how best to live within them.” This is one of those texts that speaks directly to that meme, and will garner a healthy respect to understanding these digital domains, but what more that needs to be done before it can be concluded as the be-all-end-all of how advocacy and activism are conducted.
Read Digital Activism Decoded via Scribd or purchase the print version via Amazon. For more information on the book and case studies that contributed to it, visit the Meta-Activism Project website.
Tags: activism, advocacy, book, book review, Digital Activism Decoded, ebook, PDF, resource, stewardship, tools
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