JoLee (Jo Lee)

User-submitted picture
Login or Register
to contact me

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

Title: RingTones08 got Associated Press'd (Forum)

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!

 

 

Title: Ring it ON at RingTones08.com (Blog)

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:

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.

Recent Comments

Source: Do You Twitter? (Forum) Submitted: April 11th, 2008 - 4:05pm link
RingTones08.com gets 2 thumbs up from NY Times David Pogue. Whoopeee!  Help support a Rhodie. Leave a comment at http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/ Thx & Ring it ON!