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Think big. Think really big. Double that, and you have an idea of why 1GOAL uses all caps in its name.

First there’s the goal: provide education to the 72 million children around the world who currently have no access to it. Then there are the partners: the whole of FIFA, the most popular sports league in the world, about to launch the planet into World Cup hysteria.

The 1GOAL mobile site: http://1gol.mobi/

Then there’s the mobile campaign: 24 mobile providers, covering every corner of the globe, agreeing to text their 1.5 billion subscribers in support of the campaign. Unsolicited text messages, mind you, to 1.5 billion. With a B.

The Ask

The text message will invite subscribers to respond “YES” to sign a petition to world leaders, urging them to provide more funding for education, schooling 72 million children currently without it. Alternatively, mobile subscribers can sign up at 1goal.mobi or info@join1goal.org . Nokia and Samsung are also creating a 1GOAL mobile app their customers can download.

The campaign aims to get millions of people to sign on to the effort and calculates that a 1% response rate to the mobile campaign would mean 15 million participants all by itself – the equivalent to the entire population of Holland. Numbers translate to pressure where petitions are concerned, but clearly the campaign hopes the staggering number will make news in itself.

“Teaming up with the mobile phone industry, 1GOAL can now reach over a billion people worldwide, making it the largest, cause-related campaign in history,” said Her Majesty, Queen Rania of Jordan, Co-founder and Co-Chair of 1GOAL.

How Mobile Was Enlisted

Queen Rania was personally instrumental in enlisting the GSMA to support the campaign. The GSMA represents the worldwide mobile communications industry – nearly 800 mobile operators in 219 countries. Queen Rania delivered the keynote address at the association’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona three months ago and urged the organization’s members to champion education.

Evidently she was very persuasive.

Participating mobile groups and networks include some of the world’s largest: AT&T Wireless, Axiata Group Berhad, Batelco Group, Bharti-Airtel, CSL, Hutchison 3 Group, KT, MTN, NTT DOCOMO, Mobitel, Orascom Group, SingTel Group, Smart Communications, SOFTBANK MOBILE, SK Telecom, Telenor Group, Telefónica Group, TMN, Umniah, VimpelCom and Zain Group.

Said César Alierta, chairman and CEO of Telefónica: “We believe actions speak louder than words and as we have been striving to make a difference in education for the past 12 years, we are delighted to support 1GOAL.”

(Disclosure: Jason Wojciechowski of this site and I are both working on the 1GOAL project.)

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The Internet has surpassed TV and radio as the most essential medium for Americans, a new study finds, and roughly as many people would choose to live without TV as the Internet if forced to choose.  Given the usage metrics reported in the rest of the study, it’s no wonder.

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Arbitron and Edison Research conducted the national telephone survey (landline and cell phone) February 2010, querying 1,753, people aged 12 and above. The survey explored American consumption patterns of texting, social media, video, radio, mp3 players, and podcasting.  Here are highlights of its findings.

Most essential medium

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For the first time, the Internet has surpassed other media as the most essential medium. Percent of respondents who said each medium was the most essential to them:

• 42% – Internet
• 37% – TV
• 14% – Radio
• 05% – Newspapers

It was a toss-up which of the two media they would give up if they had to, TV or the Internet:

• 49% – TV
• 48% – Internet

Unsurprisingly, this varies by age, with younger choosing to live without TV and older choosing to live without the Internet. TV begins to win out starting in the age 45-54 age cohort.

Social media

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As social media has continued to boom, the percentage of people with profile pages has risen to 48% of respondents. This varies by age but, as the report says, “older age groups experienced triple digit growth in social network adoption” this year.  Percent of respondents with profile pages, broken out by age:

• 78% – 12-17
• 77% – 18-24
• 65% – 25-34
• 51% – 35-44
• 35% – 45-54
• 31% – 55-64
• 13% – 65+

Texting

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84% of the study’s respondents own cellphones.  Of them, 45% of them said they text multiple times a day (28% never do).  This also varies by age, but not quite as much as you would think.  Percent of respondents who text multiple times a day, broken out by age:

• 75% – 12-17
• 76% – 18-24
• 63% – 25-34
• 42% – 35-44
• 37% – 45-54
• 17% – 55-64
• 07% – 65+

Media penetration

TV still has the greatest market penetration, with 98% of the sample owning or using one. Cell phones, however, are making gains.

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• 98% – TV
• 92% – Local AM/FM Radio
• 84% – Cell phone
• 52% – Online radio
• 49% – Online video
• 48% – Social networking sites
• 46% – YouTube
• 41% – DVR
• 28% – iPod
• 23% – non-iPod mp3 player
• 23% – Audio podcasts
• 20% – video podcasts
• 15% – Hulu
• 12% – Satellite radio
• 09% – Blackberry
• 07% – iPhone
• 07% – Twitter
• 03% – eReaders
• 03% – HD Radio

Access speed

Access speed is little changed from last year’s report, but 62% respondents now have wifi in their homes.

• 84% broadband
• 13% dial-up

Dial-up users have significantly lower education and income levels, concrete proof of the digital divide.

The report provides a lot more data about these and other media, with loads of graphs you may want to use in your own presentations. I recommend filling out their form and downloading the full report to get every drop.

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Top prizes in journalism were shared amongst a brand new model of nonprofit news production that places investigative articles in major publications; a cartoonist who transitioned from print illustrations to 45-second flash animations; a middling paper in a small market mixing old and new, and a traditional major market paper about to be swallowed by debt and handed to creditors.

New Media Wins Awards

Applause erupted in the New York Times newsroom today as the Times shared one of the two Pulitzer Prizes for Investigative Journalism, but the real honor belonged to Sheri Fink of ProPublica. Fink’s article ran simultaneously as a NY Times Magazine cover-story as well as on the ProPublica website. The piece exhaustively laid out the decisions doctors made to save, or possibly end lives in a New Orleans hospital as the city flooded after Katrina.

ProPublica is a non-profit news organization that promotes a new model of funding investigative pieces that many newsrooms find too expensive with their rapidly declining profits. They work with traditional news sources to place the stories, supplementing the newsroom and providing greater exposure for the work than ProPublica would achieve on its website.

Mark Fiore of SFGate.com also represented new media by winning the prize for editorial cartooning. Like ProPublica’s founder and editor who transitioned from legacy media, Fiore moved from the San Francisco Chronicle where he produced illustrations to the papers website where his 45-second flash animation impressed with, “biting wit, extensive research and ability to distill complex issues set a high standard for an emerging form of commentary,” according to the prize committee. His latest cartoon taking on the Catholic Church’s blame-shifting, entitled Hierarchy Complicitus, is a fine example of that wit in action.

Awards for Troubled Papers

On the opposite end of the spectrum sits the Philadelphia Daily News. The paper served as the poster child for the fate of the print news business in today’s David Carr New York Time’s Media Equation article, which catalogs the efforts of the Daily News’ owner to save the paper from creditors due to the newspaper’s value as a, “Public service.” The former PR man running the paper, Brian Tierney’s argument was bolstered today as the paper won a Pulitzer for reporting on a rogue police narcotics unit (I smell “The Wire” sequel) by Wendy Laker and Barbara Ruderman. Carr promptly posted a blog noting that the paper is on a roll, winning a court decision and the Pulitzer, but the auction is still to come.

Similarly, the financially struggling, family-owned Seattle Times took home an award for breaking news adding to their sterling reputation, but not their struggling bottom line. The Seattle Times faced an ugly battle with itsJoint Operating partner the Seattle Post-Intelligencer that almost ended both papers — the Times survived while the Post-Intelligencer failed, leaving one major paper in Washington.

Awards to New News Forms

Somewhere in the middle of this changing media storm stands the Bristol Herald Courier. The Virginia paper won the top honor, the Public Service award, “for the work of Daniel Gilbert in illuminating the murky mismanagement of natural-gas royalties owed to thousands of land owners in southwest Virginia, spurring remedial action by state lawmakers.” (ProPublica was a finalist for this award also.)

The Herald Courier is part of a “converged newsroom” owned by Media General, Inc. and includes the online element, (http://www.tricities.com), print (Bristol Herald Courier), and broadcast (WJHL) all working together, with reporters often appearing on TV. The converged model is a cost-cutting  move employed by struggling media companies to eliminate waste and maximize their dwindling resources. The top Herald Courier story right now: Road closed due to traffic crash. The article announcing that the newspaper has won the top honor in journalism: written by the AP. I look forward tomorrow’s edition…in print.

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