For Mobile Monday which I co-organise, I built a new Backchannel. Backchannels are a screen, next to thepresentation, where people in the audience can post their reactions. Our new backchannel includes posting by Twitter, SMS and photo’s via Mobypicture.

To post via Twitter, people had to include the hashtag #momo in their posts. The event was a big success, and #momo even made it to the trending topics on Twitter search!

I’m already talking to some other events, who want to use this to enhance audience participation.

The Setup

Photo’s by van Maanen

Beside giving a talk there, For the Hotspot day I was also asked to build a backchannel. For those who haven’t seen one yet: A backchannel is a public chatroom where the audience can interact with the speaker and itself. The audience can include their messages by texting them to a (dutch) shortcode, or using a hashmark in their twitter posts.  It enhances the involvement of the audience with the talk, as they have a way to interact with eachother, without disturbing the presentation.

The screen updates every few seconds, and fades in the new messages. If needed a moderator can remove unwanted ones.  I plan on using it for other events as well. If your looking for a backchannel, let me know.