Residents of three London boroughs have gained access to their local council services via mobile-optimised websites, after a new scheme called Mylomo went live on Monday.
Backed by Transport for London (TfL) and the borough councils of Newham, Hackney and Greenwich, Mylomo aims to improve residents' online interaction with council services. The mini-sites involved in the initiative provide localised functionality including the ability to contact the council about services such as rubbish collection, local job listings and applications, and local maps. The technology behind the initiative has been provided by mobile optimisation specialists DotMobi and public sector mobility strategists SNT Media networks.
"We hope [that] by utilising mobile web and the DotMobi technology, the council services are accessible to all who have a mobile phone with a colour screen and who can access the internet," SNT mobile chief Ian Tomson-Smith told ZDNet UK on Monday. "By delivering multiple templates catering for all types of handsets, our aim is that this should enable all income brackets to be able to access the councils' digital services in numbers previously unattainable through fixed broadband."
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Tomson-Smith says the intention is to convert 10 percent of people accessing their councils via a mobile to use the .mobi domain and to engage a further 10 percent of residents in the target demographic — the 16-30-year-old segment and the lowest 25 percent of the income bracket — who do not currently use the web services at all.
Although just three boroughs have gone live at launch, work is underway to complete 10 other London council websites by the end of 2010. Once all of London is live, the intention is to attract 875,000 monthly visits to the Mylomo service. The scheme is not restricted to the capital — those behind the network aim to provide a national framework to support all UK local authorities.
Residents can access the service by sending the keyword (eg, Hackney or Newham) to the short code number 65101. A return SMS is then sent providing a link to the specific council's .mobi site. The full range of available services are dependent upon the handset used to access the site, but it is accessible from most mobiles.
