Mobile

Bambuser

Bambuser is a live video service that allows you to capture, upload and store video from a mobile phone or webcam.

You can set up broadcasts, like channels, and share them publicly using social media, or share privately with just certain users. You can also view videos on your phone, and chat in real time.

Geo-tagging is possible. With certain platforms, you can also save a recording and upload it at a later time.

Magpi

Magpi (formerly Episurveyor), is a web-based application that enables anyone to create a data entry form online, and then use this form to collect data on a mobile device. Once collected, data can be uploaded to the Magpi website for analysis or export.

The Magpi mobile app is available for iPhone, Android, Blackberry, and Symbian phones. Simple information can also be collected from ANY phone using SMS.

Ushahidi

Ushahidi is a highly flexible platform for information collection, visualisation and interactive mapping.

It was originally developed to map incidents of violence during the Kenyan elections in 2008. Now Ushahidi (meaning 'testimony' in Swahili), is widely used in many different scenarios, including emergency response management and citizen media. See a full list of deployments.

FrontlineSMS

FrontlineSMS allows you to send and receive text messages over a mobile network.

Browser-based and built to run on Windows, Mac and Linux, FrontlineSMS can send text messages via phone, modem or online SMS aggregator.

Using Frontline SMS, you can deliver announcements, conduct polls and automate replies to incoming SMS. You can also visualise incoming data, helping you to quickly understand the results.

Zxing

ZXing (pronounced 'zebra crossing') is an open source barcode image tool.

It can be used to create and read barcodes and QR codes. A QR code is a printed square of blocky pixels which can be scanned by devices including smart phones to point users to a web page, contact details or other information.

Skype

Skype is the most popular service around for voice calls over the internet. You can also use live text chat and send files. Many international organisations rely on Skype to reduce their costs, using it instead of the telephone. It makes online collaboration between global grassroots communities easier, as it is both cheap and universal, supporting calls to landlines and mobile phones.

WordPress

WordPress is a tool used to create websites and blogs.

There are two ways to use WordPress: you can download the software from wordpress.org and install it on your own server, or you can sign up to use it as a blog service at wordpress.com.

If you use the blog service, you have less customisation options, but the hosting is free and the technical side is taken care of, so you can focus on content.

Handbrake

HandBrake was created to convert DVD discs into smaller video files suitable for viewing and sharing on the Internet. This is called 'DVD ripping'.

HandBrake is popular, and is available for many different operating systems.

There are now more features including transcoding, which means changing one type for video file into another. This is very useful for video makers wanting to make their projects small enough to fit on a CD, or to share online or on a mobile device.

WordPress for audio and video distribution

WordPress is a system for creating websites and blogs.

You can have your own installation of WordPress if you have some webspace, or you can use the free service at wordpress.com.

It is easy to install WordPress and learn how to publish webpages, and it is a good vehicle for publishing and promoting your audio and video online.

If you are using wordpress.com, you either have to pay an upgrade fee to host media files, or you can include them from SoundCloud, YouTube or other audio and video sharing sites.

Mobile Media Converter

Mobile Media Converter is a free software application originally created to allow the transcoding of audio from early mobile phones into a format which could be edited by Audacity or other audio editors. It is now a more flexible tool which can covert many audio as well as video formats.

Mobile Media Converter also allows you to download video or audio from a video sharing site like YouTube, and transcode it into a format that can be more easily edited and distributed offline.

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