Allvoices Lets Anyone with a Mobile Phone Report News to the Rest of the World

80 Percent of the Globe covered via Allvoices MMS and SMS; Citizen Journalists Break News Using Mobile Devices.

San Francisco, CA (PRWEB) April 15, 2009 — Allvoices.com, the first open media site where anyone can report from anywhere, has made it even easier for citizen journalists to break news globally with a simple text message. Now anyone can capture news with their mobile device and share their story with the rest of the world by posting it to Allvoices via SMS. For reporting events in the U.S., use short code “VOICES” (864237). Outside of the U.S., go to allvoices.com/mobile, select the country, enter a mobile carrier and phone number and use the SMS number sent to report news as it breaks.

After Allvoices receives a news message, the system sends back a report code, so more content can be contributed to the same report using the code, and the URL of the report page is automatically published on the Allvoices site. Share the report code with friends or other witnesses using the same SMS number or mms(at)allvoices.com to add information, as long as the first word of the contribution consists of @report code for the specific news event. Allvoices understands messages as short as 160 characters (the size of a standard text message) and begins building a report page around the submission. Once a submission is received via text, Allvoices begins an exhaustive search of both the mainstream media and user-generated content to create the same content-rich report pages–including pictures and video–as it does for news contributed via a PC.

“Mobile device technology has reached a point in its evolution where text reports and media are of comparable quality to data delivered via a PC or media shot with dedicated cameras,” said Amra Tareen, CEO, Allvoices. “More than three billion people around the globe carry a mobile device capable of capturing a live event and posting it to the web in real time. That alone has driven the citizen journalism phenomenon to the interest highs we’re witnessing today. It’s become increasingly clear people want breaking news delivered immediately, and with little editorial bias or interference. We specifically designed Allvoices’ mobile content collection capabilities to take advantage of this powerful network of citizen journalists and make it easier than ever for their contributed stories to be seen by a global audience.”

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