The economy's in trouble, and college has gotten expensive, so
the most obvious piece of advice is simply watch your cell phone bill.
In China, Unicom even offered 56,000 college students
$200 apiece — $50 for each college year — after a May 12 earthquake in
Sichuan collapsed several schools across the province.
And in the U.S. there's been rumors of a mysterious company that would pay your cell phone bill — or most of it —
by running a phone network that was supported by cell phone ads. But in February, one
service had failed to materialize
after 14 months (and an unfortunate
SEC investigation).
Maybe the lesson learned is simply that there's no such thing as a free lunch.
But there are lots of free services for students with cell phones.
Google has a whole suite of mobile applications
on a cell phone-ready page at M.Google.com.
They're now even able to deliver search results based on Google's approximation
of your location, with the matches displayed on Google maps.
(And of course they're touting their mobile support for YouTube videos.)
Google Talk works on the iPhone (as well all the major cell phone
brands, including Nokia, Sony, Motorola, and Samsung),
and they store transcripts of your chats in your Gmail account, letting you
access them later via the web. The service even lets you make free long distance PC-to-PC phone calls.
And don't forget their Google Scholar service. ("Stand on the shoulders of giants," reads their slogan.)
It's a search engine for academic materials like theses, books, articles
and abstracts —though not all of them will look good on your cell phone
display.
But Google's not the only game in town. Meebo also works on the iPhone,
and it unifies all your chat identities into a single
interface — AIM, Yahoo, MSN, and even Google Talk.
And Helio's "Buddy Beacon" feature let's you do more than chat with your
friends — it pinpoints their location on a map!
College students are
42% more likely to use a mobile device to send
email than the typical cell phone user — and one study predicts that within three years,
more than half the students
between ages 8 and 12
will also have a cell phone.
But be aware that some schools have negative feelings
about cell phones. Some secondary schools and colleges have already
established bans on text messaging because it's an easy way to
cheat. (A dozen students were all caught
cheating with text messages at the University of Maryland in 2002.)
Ironically, many other schools tried establishing a text-message warning
system after the Virginia Tech shootings — only to discover that most
students though
the schools were over-reacting, and didn't bother to sign up for the
services.
There's one very important historical note for college students
with cell phones. When Google's Android system is released, there will be lots of cool
new homegrown widgets for your mobile device — so be sure compare
your cell phone's applications with those of your friends.
"Open" cell phones have taken a long time to arrive,
and college students will probably be the first people to discover the cutting edge
of new cell phone applications.
For high school students, Wal-Mart is offering wake-up calls from 15-year-old Miley Cyrus
(who plays Hannah Montana) — but the novelty wears off quickly.
There's exactly 3 messages — a wake-up call, an activity reminder,
and even a reminder specifically for shopping. ("This is Hannah Montana. Seriously, it is.
And you know what else is serious? Back to school shopping.
Wal-Mart has the gear, the fashion, and the music you love....")
It was a slick opportunity for some co-branding between Disney and Wal-Mart
— but why settle for a recording of Hannah Montana? For $20 you can get a live
cell phone call from other celebrities on your birthday at Hollywood is calling —
including world heavyweight boxing champion Larry Holmes and even
Dennis Haskins, who played the kindly principal on "Saved By The Bell!"