Pictured Above: Angel Rosario (President of the Staten Island Hispanic Chamber of Commerce (SIHCC)); Brian Gomez (SIHCC Treasurer); Richard Luthmann (SIHCC General Counsel); Senator Martin Golden (New York State Senate); Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis (New York State Assembly); William Mehnert (SIHCC Vice President); and Rick Miranda (President of the Brooklyn Hispanic Chamber of Commerce).

Last Thursday, I joined the New York State Federation of Hispanic Chambers of Commerce in the historic Brooklyn Borough Hall as they hosted their Legislative Awards Dinner. It was a great mix of local, state and federal elected officials coming together with Latino small business owners to talk about the tools and resources they need to make these businesses continue to prosper. We heard from many community leaders from across New York and listened to examples of how technology is helping businesses, from cupcake shops to parade organizers, get their work done. Unfortunately, New York wireless consumers pay nearly 23% on average in wireless taxes and fees. That’s hardly business-friendly to those small business owners who foot the bill. The group has joined with MyWireless.org in support of the ‘Wireless Tax Fairness Act.’ If you haven’t already, we hope you’ll join us too.

The author makes an interesting point when he highlights the fact that most people who plan on checking their phone often don’t expect to be doing it in the middle of the game’s action. This means they’ll be checking out their phones during those big expensive commercials, so maybe it’s the mobile advertisers who might ultimately get fans’ attention. Anyway, take a look and see how you stack up. And check back with us next week to let us know how you managed your mobile device during the game, or whether the only connections you really cared about were the ones from Tom Brady or Eli Manning!

(Photo credit: Elvert Barnes, Creative Commons license.)

Apparently I wasn’t the only one going mobile over the holidays. The Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project conducted a survey on how different people used their cell phones to make purchasing decisions over the holidays (the folks over at TechCrunch do a good job at summarizingthe findings). More than half of the people surveyed said they consulted their mobile device for information to help them decide what to buy. Not surprisingly, the younger generation relied more heavily on their phone consultations than the older shoppers. One thing I found interesting is that non-white respondents were more likely to say they used their phone to look up a product than white survey respondents. This goes along with previous findings from Pew that shows minority cell phone users are more likely than their white peers to use their mobile phones to access the Internet. In general, what I think the survey shows is what many of us are experiencing in our lives every day. Wireless makes life easier for us in a lot of different ways, helping us be more productive and efficient than ever before. It also means less-hassle holiday shopping, and who doesn’t love that!

Watch Jamie Hastings of CTIA – The Wireless Association® talk about the need for support of this bill at NOBEL Women’s conference yesterday.

If you have something in mind or have created an artistic project using your cell phone or other wireless device, we’d like you to share it with us.

We surveyed many of our MyWireless.org site visitors to learn about the information you wanted and the way that you wanted to see it. Much of what we learned from that survey has been applied to our new site. We hope it’s even easier to find the tools and information that you’re looking for, and that we provide you the kind of content in which you’re most interested. This blog space is where we will share our thoughts and ideas about the latest trends and news about wireless, and we’re eager to hear from you about the news of the day or whatever’s on your mind that pertains to wireless. We’ll keep you posted on the latest regulations or legislation that affects your service and your bottom line, and our goal is to give you the resources and tools you need to stay informed and help make sure wireless stays affordable to you.

We can’t stress enough that this isn’t a one-way street. We really do want to hear from you too! We hope you’ll join the conversation here on our blog, and connect with us on Facebook or Twitter. 2011 was a busy year in wireless innovation, and together we were also able to make some real progress on tax relief for consumers like you when the House of Representatives passed the Wireless Tax Fairness Act in November. Now it’s on to the Senate, so there’s more to be done. We’ll keep you posted as things develop via our action alerts and here in the blog.

We hope you enjoy the new site, and wish you a Happy New Year from the team at MyWireless.org. Here’s to a great 2012!

Nine Web and mobile applications won a combined $100,000 in prizes on Thursday, Dec. 15, in the Apps for Communities Challenge. The contest sought apps that delivered localized, actionable information to those least likely to be online in order to promote inclusion.

A rating system that mirrors the one now used for video games will be applied to mobile apps, the wireless trade industry association said Tuesday, in conjunction with the Entertainment Software Rating Board. The move is geared to provide guidance to parents and children, especially when it comes to sexually explicit or violent appss

• 95% of American wireless consumers said they are ‘satisfied’ or ‘very satisfied’ with their service.
• 75% of consumers rated their ‘value’ as excellent or good, considering the price they pay for monthly wireless service and the benefits it provides.
• Combined, 85% think that the average tax rate on their monthly wireless phone bill (more than 16%) should be ‘lower,’ or ‘the same,’ as the average sales tax rate (more than 7%) they pay on other general goods and services.
• Only 6% of consumers correctly identified average monthly wireless taxes nationally as being between 15-19%.
• Only 7% of consumers were able to identify that some states’ monthly wireless taxes average 20% or more.
• 67% of consumers support Congress passing a 5-year freeze on all new state and local wireless service taxes.
• 85% consumers agreed that “wireless companies keep offering consumers more choices, innovation and services – so you have the freedom to do just about anything with your phone.”
• An overwhelming 83% of consumers agree that “companies competing for wireless customers give consumers enough choices so they can pick the wireless device, plan, options and content that best fits their needs.”
• 78% of consumers believe adding new government regulations on wireless service would make their cell phone service more expensive, or make no difference at all.
• 69% of consumers believe adding new government regulations on wireless service would either make their cell phone service worse, or make no difference at all.

Source: MyWireless.org® Annual National Consumer Survey; McLaughlin & Associates, along with Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates, conducted this bi-partisan national survey of 1,000 adult wireless phone users who are likely voters via telephone on March 1-3, 2011.