Using text messages to make donations isn’t a new concept, but few could have predicted the way this simple, innovative use of technology would explode in response to the earthquake in Haiti.

An historic $27 million had already been raised for disaster relief via text as of Monday (1/18), six days after the earthquake. Compare that to less than $500,000 total in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, or $190,000 raised by the American Red Cross Text 2HELP campaign from September to December, 2008.

The contrast with Katrina is even more startling when considering that total Katrina donations were more than double total Haiti donations over the first six days for each. Texting has accounted for more than 10% of Haiti donations. The American Red Cross has been the biggest recipient; of $112 million total raised through Monday, a staggering 15-20% came via text, with two-thirds donated online.

The effectiveness of the text campaign when combined with major media outreach was proven on a stunning level last weekend during the NFL playoffs. Frequent PSAs aired throughout all four games. The result: text donations poured in at a rate of $500,000 an hour during that time.

While the sheer amount of money raised may be a surprise, text donations reaching its tipping point is not. Consider the factors:

• A disaster of tremendous proportions commanding the world’s attention
• The ever-increasing use of texts not only for communication, but for companies to offer services
• Ease of use: Anytime, anywhere, text a short code to add the donation to your bill, no sign-in, forms or credit cards required
• Social media like Twitter and Facebook spreading the word to the same demographic most likely to adopt this technology in the first place

As with any new technology, expanding so quickly has not been without growing pains. News broke that donations could experience delays of 60-90 days in reaching its destination, as mobile carriers waited for donors to pay their bills. Almost immediately, providers announced they would fast-track the money, pledging to advance 80-100% right away.

As Haiti earthquake relief brings text donations to the mainstream, it will be exciting to see how organizations and grassroots campaigns harness this new power in the very immediate future. Also fascinating to track: How this may empower the demographic most likely to use it – the young generation who knows texting as a way of life, but may never have participated in a campaign like this before.

There’s a large, new generation ready to step up, and a whole new way for them to do so in the most simple, effective way possible.

I recently spoke with Mitchell about the viral image that he created. “I woke up the next day and it was crazy,” Mitchell said, “I was getting contacted by all of these media outlets and being flooded.” In a matter of days, countless people, including Conan’s staff, started using the image as their avatars. Mitchell doesn’t know how it spread so fast.

As it turns out, the “I’m with COCO” image was promptly picked up by another Conan supporter who created the “I’m with COCO” fan page on Facebook. (Mitchell was then added as an admin.) The “I’m with COCO” page—which facetiously, albeit plausibly, describes itself as a “Religious Organization”—has garnered over 250,000 supporters in the past week, far outpacing anything in the Leno camp. If you were to hit “Refresh” on your browser any night last week, you’d likely see the number of COCO fans increasing by 20-30 in a matter of seconds. Over on Twitter, the web’s other bellwether of now, data compiled by Trendrr and featured in Advertising Age showed that chatter and sentiment on the site leaned heavily in favor of Conan from January 9th to January 16th.

That Conan would appear to be more popular on social media sites is not surprising given that these sites are more popular with young people and Leno’s audience tends to be older. What is surprising, if not perplexing, is that NBC has chosen the older demographic over the one traditionally favored by advertisers. (That’s still how television networks are supposed to make money, right?) Fox, which employed Conan O’Brien as a writer for “The Simpsons” and may be courting him again, must be toasting right now to the NBC debacle.

History repeats itself, sort of. Back in 1992, NBC’s decision to tap Jay Leno, and not David Letterman, to fill Johnny Carson’s coveted chair reminds us that the network is no stranger to “Tonight Show” drama. The difference between then and now, however, is that the audience is not a faceless Nielsen rating: it’s connected, vocal, and in typical web fashion, very opinionated.

The online campaign for Conan will not reverse the decision of NBC executives. Still, moving forward, it will probably cause the big networks to think more carefully about how their audiences might respond—especially when that audience is armed with social media—before making big decisions. I asked Mike Mitchell what he saw as the goal of the “I’m with COCO” movement, which has moved from the internet to staging ‘rallies’ in various cities, and he offered a humble response, “I’d like NBC to look at it and maybe think that they’ve made a mistake.”

Foursquare has been living in the social media spotlight.  Sure, it is fun for users; you virtually check-in at certain venues across your city and receive digital badges and accolades for frequenting select spots. But, what do businesses have to gain from Foursquare? What business model will this new chosen one of social media show us in 2010 that will solidify it as a digital tool and not just a trending topic?

Among the best recent news out of 4sq headquarters is the announcement of global domination. Though the game was once restricted to specific cities  with numerous venues within each, you can now check-in from any location across the world, and any venue in any location is fair game. This global awakening is just the first step in providing access to millions of businesses’ who couldn’t reach users before.

No venues? No problem! In 2009, 4sq partnered with Motorola for its CLIQ and DROID parties. When the party elite arrived at New York City's Morimoto restaurant and pulled out their gadget of choice to check-in, they were greeted with a Foursquare surprise! Upon check-in, they received a special message encouraging them to tweet with a suggested hashtag and giving a few lines of info on the party. Though Foursquare has made it's rounds encouraging venues to offer incentives and deals, in terms of temporary events, this was a first. And, by enabling this check-in, Foursquare made it easy for bloggers and microbloggers to share information from this event.

Also on the horizon for the GPS based app, don't be surprised if you see Facebook-like fan or business profiles. Though every Foursquare user is provided with a profile, A venue could potentially work with the company to create branded top user and mayor lists, incentives clubs, and daily specials. Brooklyn Museum, for example, is one of the first company's to use this model by providing a great to-do list for museum go-ers and locals interested in arts and culture. The online savvy hot-spot lists staff picks in the area and links to a mobile site where users can find out more about the art on display.Effectively, you would check-in upon arrival to the museum, via Foursquare, click over to the mobile site to browse the galleries, and click back over to the staff picks list when it's time to head to dinner. Pretty effective planning on the part of the museum.

With the many incentives Foursquare can create to draw new business, locate where patrons visit the most, and entice frequent trips, this start up has definitely proven its worth in terms of a steady business plan. Though they are closely related, and often thought of as a predecessor of Twitter, I wouldn't expect a Twitter-like wait for this business model to become mainstream. Though some of these initiatives are still in beta or early form, they are paving a path for future business models, as well  

100,000 words.  No, that’s not the length of this post.  It is the estimated amount of information the average American takes in per day according to a recently released UC San Diego study that made its way into a New York Times story last month.  Now imagine your company’s Marketing Director asking you to come up with an email campaign so good that it will not only get through all of your potential customers’ spam filters, render perfectly in any browser, and earn you a few seconds of their attention – but it will also stick out in that 100K crowd.

This blog post can’t promise any of that.  However, following these tips will at least improve the chances that your words will be what your customer or client will retain at the end of the day.

Step 1: Conceptualizing

Conceptualizing your email should include more than just designing its look and feel.  The copy you place into your eblast is vital, too.  When it comes to making content that will stick in a reader’s memory, it never hurts to include material that helps/educates/informs the reader, but does not necessarily advertise your product.  If you work in food, add a few recipes (with your products in the ingredients list) to your newsletter.  If your business is sporting goods, supply a few tips on proper nutrition or pre-workout preparation.

As you hammer out your copy, you should also pay attention to factors that control whether or not you even make it to the Inbox.  Avoid gimmicky lingo whenever possible, especially in the subject line.  "FREE," multiple dollar signs, or even the word "coupon" in your email's subject could trigger a spam filter.  Every email client - and sometimes, individual domains - have a different spam filter, but there are certainly things they have in common.  Microsoft provides a list (by no means complete) on their site of words and phrases to look out for when sending emails to Outlook users.  You can find it here.

Step 2: Development  

XHTML, CSS, SQL, and countless other anagrams have come along over the past 10 years, drastically changing how we code, design, and implement websites in the age of Web 2.0.  Don't count on using very much of it in email marketing.

This is because unlike Internet browsers, email and webmail clients have not adopted a centralized convention for reading HTML or CSS.  This requires more of a "back to the basics" approach to coding in an effort to play to the lowest common denominator amongst all of the most popular email clients.  Be ready to party like it's 1999.  Avoid using advanced CSS or Flash in your emails; they will almost never render correctly across all major clients.

Step 3: Quality-Assurance

Speaking of the major clients, do you know which ones they are?  As each one handles HTML a little differently from the others, it is vital to test your eblast across them all.  Microsoft Outlook and Entourage, as well as Mozilla Thunderbird are good starting points.  GMail, Hotmail, Yahoo Mail, and AOL Mail are the major web-based clients, and obtaining a test email account for each is free.

Don't just watch for formatting or code issues.  Though it can be lengthy and tedious, checking across the four major webmail providers also gives you insight into which ones will send your eblast into its spam filter and for whatever reason.  Most of the time, it's due to your subject line.  If a particular webmail client keeps labeling your eblast as spam, tweaking it slightly in accordance to the guidelines in Step 1 can help improve your deliverability.

Step 4: Sending   

You've coded the email, you tested in every imaginable way, it formats correctly in all the popular email clients, and no one mistakenly believes it's spam.  Now it's time for the send.  But how do you get your eblasts to thousands of your customers?

Timing is a very important consideration when deploying your campaign.  Your potential customers will miss the “what” of your eblast completely if you don’t know the proper “when.”  Generally, it’s a bad idea to try to send during “off” hours in the day, such as weekends or evenings.  Shooting for the middle of the day or the early afternoon Tuesday through Thursday tends to work best.  This is the middle of the workweek, when customers with email access at their jobs are most likely to “stumble” upon your message.

In addition to the “what” and “when,” pay attention to the “how.” A large number of email marketing services exist in the marketplace today.  Constant Contact, Lyris, and ExactTarget are some of the bigger examples.  A lot of these services offer tools such as a WYSIWYG HTML editor, templates (in case you don’t have a designer or developer on board), and tools to help you find out whether or not your newsletter complies with CAN-SPAM and avoids spam filters.

These tips only provide a starting point.  A lot of the earlier mentioned email marketing services offer conventions, whitepapers, and other sources of information on how to reach your base.  Blogs abound with free advice on email marketing.  However, with time and experience, you will soon find yourself confident in your ability to make those words in your newsletter compete with the other 100,000 out there.