- Nov 21 2008 - 8:00am
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- Nov 25 2008 - 10:00am
- Nov 25 2008 - 6:00pm
- Dec 1 2008 - 9:00am
JoLee (Jo Lee)
Interests
About Me
I'm a partner at Green Machine PR, a Rhode Island-based boutique PR firm that focuses on high-tech and green-tech. I am also a serial developer of online sites for grassroots activists and the politically inclined. I started and run CitizenSpeak - a free email advocacy service for grassroots organizations. CitizenSpeak and its developers have won a number of prestigious awards, including the Tides Foundation Pizzigati award and a Webby honoree award. In the spirit of ’08, I also recently launched RingTones08.com – a free site where people can upload and share ringtones about the 2008 election. Ring it ON!
Recent Content
Ok. So RingTones08.com didn't get TechCrunched but getting the Assocated Press to write an article about political ringtones ain't bubkes.
RingTones08 - a free site for posting and sharing ringtones about the '08 election - got listed along side the Obama Campaign and Slate Magazine as leading innovators in the use of ringtones for political purposes.
You can read the article here: http://www.lcsun-news.com/ci_9...
Help support the political ringtone cause by blogging, twitting or whatevering this news.
Thanks so much and Ring it ON!
Jo Lee is a partner at Green Machine PR, a Rhode Island-based boutique PR firm that focuses on high-tech and green-tech. She's also a serial developer of online sites for grassroots activists and the politically inclined including CitizenSpeak and RingTones08.com.
Hello Rhodies! I’m coming to you from Princeton NJ where I have been temporarily living for the past year. A proud and diehard Providence Geek, I can’t wait to return this summer!
For the past year I’ve been working on RingTones08.com – a free site for uploading and sharing ringtones about the 2008 election. Why RingTones08.com? With a record increase in youth voters, ringtones have the potential to become the bumper stickers of the ‘08 election. We’ve done the political t-shirts, blogs, and buttons. Now it’s time to Ring.
I became obsessed with ringtones in 2005 after hearing an NPR story about a now famous ringtone campaign in the Philippines. An embargoed recording of the Philippine President admitting to vote-rigging was leaked to an activist. On a lark, the activist turned the recording into a ringtone. It became one of the most popular ringtones ever.
The Philippine President at her most humiliating moment filled the airwaves at bus stops, coffee shops, malls - everywhere cell phones rang. For the first time millions of people via their teeny little cell phones circumnavigated a state-controlled media and exposed corruption of the highest order in a country known to be one of the most dangerous places for journalists to work.
Back in America, it had become clear that WMD was a figment of the Neocons’ imagination, the war was a quagmire, and the media had been tragically cowed by a war president. I longed to hear my cell phone ring “Last throes of insurgency,” or “They’ll greet us with open arms” to remind us of the high price of hubris.
For two years I begged people to start a peer-to-peer ringtone site. Then I discovered Myxer.com which offers a free platform for downloading and sharing ringtones. Using Myxer on the back-end, I could finally realize my ringtone dream. Providence-based Big Ring Design built the first version of RingTones08.com – practically over night. The rest is history.
RingTones08.com now boasts a slew of great ringtones. Here’s just a tiny sample:
- The most downloaded, pro-Obama Yes We Can
- The sardonic McCain’s 10,000 Years
- The tragic Brownie You’re Doing a Heck of Job
- The more topical Spitzer’s #9
- The upbeat and pumping Ron Paul Revolution. (I know he’s gone but it’s still a great ringtone.)
There aren’t any really strong pro-Clinton or McCain ringtones because like Internet videos, ringtones are made by a young demographic which leans toward Obama. Plus, many of the ringtones at RingTones08 are re-purposed YouTube videos, once again, the best of which are pro-Obama.
Having said this, if you have a good idea for a Clinton or McCain ringtone, please, please, please post it at RingTones08.com
Ringtones won’t save the world but they offer a people-powered broadcasting network to help people get their voices heard. Be a true patriot this election year. Flip a burger, eat a freedom fry, and roll your own ringtone at RingTones08.com. Civic duty has never been more fun.







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