Most mobiles…

Here’s a clip from a current billboard, newsprint, and TV advertising campaign in India.  It features mega star Abhishek Bachchan (son of mega-mega star Amitabh Bachchan) presiding over a divided/acrimonious rural community. As the village sarpanch, an elected official, AB recommends replacing people’s names with mobile numbers and–presto–all is well.

Whether the ads are inappropriate, edgy, or simply over-the-top remains a matter of some debate.  But no matter how one reads the political undertones, the ads do tap a great sense of how people’s mobile numbers seem to serve as an adjunct identity. With relatively few landline numbers, no single, integrated national ID card, and often-vague physical addresses, one’s mobile number in India is important indeed.

Apologies for the lengthy absence – it’s been an unusually busy stretch. 

My paper on “The Rules of Beeping” is now available as part of the October 2007 issue of the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 13(1). 

I’ve had lots of fun this month speaking to the broader community about beeping and missed calls, and I’m grateful to many of you for your interest. A piece from Andrew Havens at Reuters kicked off this round of discussion, which has carried into German, Swiss, and Indonesian venues (at least), plus to the Scientific American Blog. 

I also had a chance to do a podcast interview with Kamla Bhatt on beeping/missed calls this week; part one of the interview is here.  I cover a lot of the same ground in the interview as in as the paper…in case some of you prefer just an occasional ‘um’ or ‘ahh’ mixed in with your communication theory.