June 10, 2009
Obama’s speech from Cairo by SMS - how it happened
The US State Department’s initiative to connect people abroad during President Obama’s speech from Cairo was a huge success and they used Clickatell (this blog's favorite sponsor) to make it happen.
According to their press release:
With the help of Clickatell, the US Department of State built a website on www.america.go to register people wanting to receive SMS message highlights from President Obama’s speech from Cairo on June 4, 2009.
Thousands of people representing more than 150 countries opted-in to the first-of-its-kind SMS campaign, meeting the goals of the US State Department to create open, two-way mobile communications from global audiences – in essence, creating a “Mobile Town Hall Without Borders.”
Specifically for this event, Clickatell set up unique mobile routing and tapped into its own existing complex network infrastructure capable of reaching more than 775 mobile operators in over 220 countries around the world.
Clickatell worked closely with the US State Department to build the online website and registration process to offer opt-in services for global citizens wanting to participate during the live speech.
The service received registrations from thousands of people representing more than 150 countries in four languages, including English, Persian, Urdu, and Arabic. Comments directly from those having signed up to receive SMS speech highlights have been posted to the website at America.gov.
The success of the Obama Cairo Speech campaign was made instantly apparent during the successful ‘live’ speech excerpt delivery via SMS to enrolled participants.
In addition, participants from around the world replied back with their speech comments immediately. SMS-reply messages from enrolled participants with comments were received by Clickatell and immediately posted on the website of the US State Department.
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