Digital Citizen Pulse

Much has been written recently about California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's "Digital Textbook Initiative" -- announced earlier this month.

Hype Aside

To be sure, much of this is political hype. The Governor is touting this measure as one way to trim a budget deficit of some $24.3 billion, while the fact is that school books only constitute about 1% of a school district's budget, and the $300 million savings forecast for the initial year is roughly one tenth of a percent (1/1000th) of the budget deficit. It is not what is going to solve the fiscal crisis.

But it makes for good copy, and the Governor is nothing if not PR savvy. Also, this has raised some interesting issues.

Kids today are much more familiar and at home with electronic gadgetry--including laptops, iPhones, eBook readers--than with analog (as in printed) books. Using this information channel to educate may be a stroke of genius.

Also, comparing the cost of updating a printed textbook (which, by the way, run the state of California roughly $100 a copy) with updating online educational content, well, that math surely speaks for itself. Not only is the cost of a digital update a fraction (and a small one at that) of updating a printed book, but it can be done quickly, keeping the educational content current, economically.

Wikis

The digital textbook arena also includes the wikis, that is to say, the community-based information resources that anyone, really, can update with current, or more accurate, information. The world is in flux, and the wikis--to a very large degree--are keeping pace; and, by extension, so can the digital textbooks.

DEC

I think--budget benefits aside--that here lies the greatest benefit to digital educational content (watch for the acronym DEC to arrive at a laptop screen near you in the not so distant future--and when it does, remember, you saw it here first); a current snapshot of the world, or state of science--delivered to the student in a familiar, and economical way.

Critics

As with anything proposed anywhere by anyone, ready-made critics are quick to point out the many flaws with the plan. The Digital Textbook Initiative is no exception.

Of most concern is the Digital Divide that would prevent many school children from viewing such educational content from home.

The State of Texas approaches this problem with an interesting solution: take the savings made on digital books and buy computer equipment to bridge the divide with it. Unfortunately, California cannot afford to follow suit.

However, the thing to remember is that much of the new ditiral textbooks in the classroom will be printed out by the teacher and handed to students, while displayed on overhead projectors. Yes, it would be nice if everyone (and every state in the Union is working on that) had a laptop at home, with broadband access, but that is not a must for implementation of this plan.

Teacher Freedom

Other critical voices complain that digital educational content does not come in as complete a package as textbooks do: Teacher's Guides, Sample Lessons, Tests, Teacher Training Courses. In the DEC scenario, teachers will have to assemble their own packages, combining the newly released, and state board of education approved, e-books with the Wiki universe. Teachers will also be expected to network with each other over the web to discover and share best practices.

In my book, this opens the door to wonderful teacher creativity and much more freedom to actually teach (rather than to tow some official line). Those, however, more interested in tenure and paycheck, would rather not be bothered with all that responsibility, and much prefer to continue to be the conduit of spoon-feeding children what the printed textbooks, and their teaching plans dictate.

I would have thought that this is an opportunity any teacher would jump at.

Trial Results

San Jose School District in California has run a digital educational content pilot program this year, and while the grades are not in yet, Assistant superintendent Bill Erlendson reports that his teachers see learning improvements in the classrooms. 87% of the teachers involved in the pilot had a favorable impression of it, and 62% of them plan to continue, if not expand, the use of digital educational content.

Bottom Line

While it's being touted as a money-saving measure today, I think that digital educational content will soon be the order of the day for educational, and teacher-freedom reasons, much to the chagrin of Gutenberg, who is probably spinning in his grave by now.

Few events in recent times have highlighted the liberating use of digital technology like the protests and upheaval in Iran following the somewhat suspect election.

While the authorities scramble to clamp down on the free use of cell phones, blogs, and tweets, innovative citizens find new loopholes to keep the world informed despite the best and ongoing effort of the ruling regime.

With only about 9,000 tweeter registrants whose profile indicate that they are from Iran, it is doubtful that the often reported romantic notion of the "Twitter Revolution" bears much resemblance to truth. Much more likely is that the word about demonstrations got out via regular land lines, cell phone, SMS messaging, and good old door-to-door word of mouth.

However, there is no denying that Twitter has been instrumental in keeping the world informed about events in Teheran and elsewhere in Iran. Witness the Obama Administration's request that Twitter defer regularly schedule maintenance from July 15 to later the next day (and what a PR coup for Twitter).

But consider the risk the tweeters (and bloggers) are running:

Winston Smith, in George Orwell's 1984, was very wary of the Ministry of Love's telescreens which monitored all inhabitants of Oceania: "The smallest thing could give you away. A nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself--anything that carried with it the suggestion of abnormality, of having something to hide."

The Iranian Ministry of Love is probably not sleeping much these days, busy tracing and tracking cell calls, tweets, blog posts, etc. that have not found a way to hide their IP addresses behind proxies. Also, the Ministry of Love has of course blocked the Twitter site, and getting around that takes the kind of geek mind that perhaps is not prevalent in Teheran as yet.

Still word keeps coming, cell-videos, tweets, blogs, keeping the world informed, much recorded and reported at personal peril. These, to my mind, are the true digital revolutionaries of today.

And it seems like the digital genie is out of the Iranian lamp, and despite concerted regime efforts to stuff it back in, it will remain released.

A little while back Associated Press reported that one of the largest newspapers in Germany, Bild--which means "picture" in English--is expanding their reported base, but not by hiring.

Instead, they have partnered with a large German grocery chain, Lidl, to sell inexpensive digital cameras to what they hope to be an army of citizens, who in effect will then become "digitally deputized" reporters for the paper.

According to AP, Michael Paustian, a managing editor for the paper with a circulation of 3.3 million weekday copies, said, "We can't cover everything. We think it is an advance for journalism."

The camera, which comes with 2 gigabytes of memory, and is good for both stills and video, comes with necessary software, and a USB port that allows the digital deputy (also referred to as "reader-reporter") to upload pictures directly to Bild editors, assigned with the specific task of reviewing such images for publication.

Tobias Froehlich, a Bild spokesman, said that the paper's goal was to encourage such deputies to gain the widest possible exposure for their work.

The idea, of course, is not new--how often do we not see "public images" or video in newscasts, but this is probably the first active push to recruit such reader-reporters.

Not so sure how the existing photographers/reporters feel about that, but this the story doesn't tell.

It does however go on to mention that Eva Werner, a spokeswoman for the German Journalists' Association, begged to differ with this being such a great concept. In fact, she feared that Bild's army of digital deputies would undermine the work of the paper's full-time counterparts by using paparazzi like tactics to photograph celebrities, or even interfere with police in their enthusiasm to capture the ins and outs of a crime or accident scene for the paper.

"It poses a threat to quality journalism," she said. "The more images from non-professionals that are pushed onto the market, even though professional images are available."

Perhaps the paper is also trying to save a buck, no?

The jury is still out on this one.

According to a new OECD report, the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development has just released its official broadband statistics for December 2008.

This data, accompanied by graphs and Excel files, can be found in full here.

Separately, as part of the OECD's ongoing response to the economic crisis, a new report has just been released that focuses the role of broadband investment in aiding economic recovery. This paper argues that policy makers need to evaluate the costs and benefits of any public investment in telecommunication infrastructure and select projects which can stimulate current demand but simultaneously expand the productive capacity of the economy in the longer term. All public investments in telecommunications should balance four key items - connectivity, competition, innovation/growth and social benefit.

Report Highlights

The number of broadband subscribers in the OECD reached 267 million in December 2008, or the equivalent of  22.6 subscribers per 100 inhabitants. The number of broadband subscriptions grew 13% during 2008. The economic crisis has not significantly slowed broadband adoption. In fact, broadband growth during the last six months of the year was slightly stronger at 6.23% than in the first six months at 6.16%. 

The strongest per-capita subscriber growth over the year was in the Slovak Republic, Greece, New Zealand and Norway, Germany, France and the United States. Each country added more than 3 subscribers per 100 inhabitants during the past year. On average, the OECD area increased 2.5 subscribers per 100 inhabitants over the year.

Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland, Iceland, Sweden, Korea and Finland maintain their lead the OECD with broadband penetration well above the OECD average, each surpassing the 30 subscribers per 100 inhabitants threshold. There was no change in rankings in the past 6 months among these leading countries.

The United States is the largest broadband market in the OECD with 80 million subscribers, representing 30% of all broadband connections in the OECD.

The upgrade to fiber-based broadband connections continues in the OECD. Fiber subscriptions now comprise 10% of all broadband connections in the OECD (up from 9% in June 2008). Fiber is the dominant connection technology in Korea and Japan and now accounts for 48% of all Japanese broadband subscriptions and 43% in Korea. Korea has the highest fiber penetration rate at 13.8 fiber subscribers per 100 inhabitants. 

Interesting Statistics

Speed

• Twelve countries offers connectivity of 50 Mbit/s or greater.
• Connections of 20 Mbit/s were available in all but two OECD countries in September 2008.
• The average advertised speed of fiber-based connections is 6 times greater than DSL and 4 times greater than cable.
• The average advertised speed for DSL is 9.6 Mbit/s,  for cable is 14.9 Mbit/s and for fiber is 65.3 Mbit/s.
• Japanese providers now offer cable broadband services at 160 megabits per second.

Prices

• As of September 2008, each of the thirty OECD countries had entry levels plans available for less than $34 US.
• DSL subscribers pay an average of $40 US per month for broadband service. The lowest average price for DSL service was in Japan at $26 US.
• Cable subscribers pay an average of $45 US per month for broadband service. France has the least-expensive average price at $22 US.
• The average price of one megabit per second of broadband capacity is $12 US.
• On average, subscribers in OECD countries pay 15 times more per advertised megabit of connectivity than Koreans.
• Even though speeds were increasing, DSL subscription prices fell an average of 14% and cable 15% per year since 2005.

More to follow.

An opinion written by Tim Rutten of Los Angeles Times last Tuesday, brought to the fore the main hurdle preventing newspapers to charge for online contents: should one paper start, but go it alone, the web-visitor will simply go elsewhere. For a fee based web-news service to truly function, all major players have to synchronize and begin charging at the same time.

But that, as Mr. Rutten points out, smacks of antitrust issues and price-fixing.

What he suggests is that the Obama administration affords the newspaper industry the same antitrust leeway that major league baseball currently enjoys.

According to the opinion, "Executives from many of America's leading newspaper companies and the head of the Associated Press met quietly in Chicago on Thursday to discuss ways to increase revenues from their online operations--presumably by charging visitors to their websites--as well as how to recapture some share of their catastrophically declining classified ad business.

"The meeting, whose participants included an antitrust lawyer to make sure the conversation didn't stray into impermissible collusion or price-fixing, was conducted under the auspices of the Newspaper Assn. of America, and its agenda was titled 'Models to Lawfully Monetize Content.' These guys may be slow on the uptake, but their legal departments have schooled them well in risk management."

Mr. Rutten goes on to say that "Unless the English-speaking world's newspapers find a way to charge for the content they currently give away free on their websites and allow to be aggregated and sold to advertisers by Internet search-engine companies that pay no fees for the privilege, most papers won't survive very far into the next decade."

And this is not crying wolf. American newspapers are losing classified advertising to Craigslist and others by the bucket load--by the $7 billion worth bucket load. To rub salt into these wounds they have also lost 25% of their display advertising over the same eighteen month period, which translates in to an annual loss of $12 billion. Real money, that.

The Associated Press reports that over the same period newspapers online advertising revenue, although rising, only adds up to $445 million, and that's a far cry from spelling viability.

And when it comes to the cost-cutting necessary to meet the financial realities of a vastly reduced revenue stream, what will go first? You guessed it: that oh, so expensive, and most likely over-qualified journalist we currently pay for in Paris, or Rome, or Barcelona, or even in our own backyard.

Make do with less in the newspaper world means, essentially, make do with less quality unbiased reporting. That, in any concerned citizen's book is too hefty a price to pay.

But the problem, as Mr. Rutten points out, "is that newspapers can't begin charging for online content or licensing their journalism to search engines unless all the English-speaking papers do it at once. That's currently illegal under laws barring collusion and price-fixing."

I wanted to clarify that very paragraph with him, and he kindly responded to my email and had no problem with me quoting his reply.

Here's the exchange:

My question:

"When you say the problem is that that newspapers can't begin charging for online content or licensing their journalism to search engines unless all the English-speaking papers do it at once, do you mean that if all newspapers do not do so simultaneously, online readers will simply go somewhere else that's still free?

"Or is there a specific/legal reason LA Times, for example, could not begin charging for its online content tomorrow (which I, for one, would pay for)?"

Tim Rutten's reply:

"You've got the point exactly. Given the reach of the web--every Saturday, for example, I read the Guardian's excellent book section--unless all the quality English language newspapers are allowed to act in concert, readers simply will vote with their clicks and go to the free sites."

And that's the crux.

For although Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has endorsed the idea of allowing the newspaper industry at least a temporary exemption from the antitrust and price-fixing statues--which would allow such a concerted and coordinated start to fee-based online news--the Justice Department's antitrust division begs to differ, and sees no reason for such an exemption.

This looks to shape up as a very interesting confrontation, one with the survival of the newspaper industry in general--and good journalism in particular--at stake.

I recently came across an amazing U.K. company: GBTV, presumably an acronym for Great Britain Television.

This site is dedicated to delivering high quality, high impact, and editorially driven content in the British Finance, Government, and Health Services Sectors.

All of their programs are available for free (although you need to register with them) and cover such topics as:

• Engaging communities through high-speed broadband - Interview with Richard Steel, President of Socitm. (Which would not play directly on my PC--perhaps because I'm in the U.S.--but which downloaded just fine for replay);
• Driving up recycling and energy efficiency - Paul Bettison, LGA Environment Board;
• Accelerating wind energy usage in the UK - Interview with Maria McCaffery; and
• Preventing data leaks in the public sector - Interview with David Stanley, Proofpoint.

The channel delivers a host of informative and timely information for the digital citizen who wants to stay informed about current issues, and seems to have added a workable fluff-filter (weeding out most but the essentials) as part of their approach.

GBTC recently launched their LocalGovTV channel as a web-cast vehicle for governors of public bodies, for council members and senior executives across all public sector organizations and is available free to an unlimited audience at anytime, at any location via the internet.

Other channels include: HealthExecTV, and eGovEuropeTV.

The areas of GBTC focus include:

• Charities
• Children's Services
• Climate Change
• Local Government
• Mobile Working

The site is growing in popularity (now sports 1.2 million hits a month), and for a good reason; and now provides the full spectrum of technical services spanning Internet-TV operations to live web casts and satellite broadcasts.

They produce programs ranging from full-length magazine-format programs to corporate profiles and case studies with the blend of editorial insight and production quality expected of national broadcasters.

A great effort, which I hope will meet with even greater success. And one that I'd like to see replicated on a broad scale here in the U.S.

I am fascinated with the newspaper industry and where it is heading. It seems that the consensus is that the industry as a whole is dead and kicking, in other words, it is quite alive, but losing profitability.

Alive

According to an NAA presentation Scarborough Research reported that in 2008, 100 Million adults read a newspaper on an average weekday. Now, that's not dead by any stretch. The same report puts it in perspective: 98 million adults watched the Superbowl, 63 million watched the world series, 60 million watch any reality television show, and 42 million visit amazon.com.

According to Comscore Research, newspaper websites are #1 in 22 of the 25 top markets. Scarborough Research adds to that that 42% of all Internet users visit a newspaper website at least once a month.

Nielsen Research reports that in January of 2009, 75 million unique visitors (which does not include re-visits, of course) visited a newspaper website).

These are good stats, and should cheer any newspaperman.

Even so, according to this presentation, "Newspapers are not as profitable as they were a year ago or even two years ago. Many newspapers have dropped from a 30% margin to maybe a ten to fifteen percent margin... Overall, the beleaguered newspaper industry's financial health has been weakened but remains healthy by most measures. In this environment, that is an achievement."

How?

The presentation goes on to report that "Newspapers are expanding the growing list of digital products and niches. Proctor and Gamble realized years ago that consumers want their toothpaste in a variety of ways. From the days of one size and one flavor, they have offered dozens of options to meet consumers needs, from pastes to gels to whiteners to breath fresheners etc. Newspapers today are recognizing that their consumers too, enjoy their newspaper in a variety of ways and it is our job to deliver that newspaper to them in whatever form they require.

"Beyond the web sites, you are seeing more newspapers offering mobile applications, some newspapers experimenting with e-readers, newspapers working with printers on personalized newspapers and more. The bottom line here is that our reader's needs must be met and we are in the information industry not printers. We are moving quickly to meet those changing needs."

Strengths

Why do 100 million adults pick up a newspaper every day? Sure, a lot of that is from sheer momentum: generations have done precisely that. But more importantly, most are after local new, and the newspaper industry recognizes that.

"Newspapers remain at the heart of the local conversation. No one tells consumers more about what is going on in the community than newspapers. For advertisers, newspapers are finding incremental ways to target locally. Newspapers are inserting themselves as the hub of community information and interactions, providing platforms to share local content, host discussions and provide in-depth community information.

"Most of this centers around Geographic communities, e.g. TribLocal, Bluffton Today. The, New York Times plans to provide hyper-local blogs for various metro area communities, etc.

"In print, newspaper readership declined a modest 2.7 percent from 2007 to 2008, according to Scarborough Research. Meanwhile, TV networks lost 7 percent of their total audience in the last 3 months of 2008 alone."

Prediction

I believe that if the industry focus on its "local" strengths, and widely diversify it's delivery vehicles: e-Readers like Sony Reader and Kindle (which just released the Kindle DX, featuring a considerably larger display to facilitate reading newspapers/magazines)--and, as Rupert Murdoch has recently indicated, begin to charge a (reasonable) fee for their online content--then the newspaper industry will resurrect itself famously.

According to the NTIA (National Telecommunications and Information Administration), the U.S. Congress has appropriated $4.7 billion to establish a Broadband Technology Opportunities Program for awards to eligible entities to develop and expand broadband services to unserved and underserved areas and improve access to broadband by public safety agencies.

Of these funds, $250 million will be available for innovative programs that encourage sustainable adoption of broadband services; at least $200 million will be available to upgrade technology and capacity at public computing centers, including community colleges and public libraries; $10 million will be a transfer to the Office of Inspector General for the purposes of BTOP audits and oversight. Up to $350 million of the BTOP funding is designated for the development and maintenance of statewide broadband inventory maps.

On April 2, 2009 Mark G. Seifert, the Senior Advisor to the Assistant Secretary of the NTIA testified before the Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, and the Internet of the U.S. House of Representatives concerning BTOP progress.

According to Mr. Seifert, the BTOP is "the first step in realizing President Obama's vision of bringing the benefits of broadband technology to all Americans. At its core, the broadband initiatives in the Recovery Act offer a tremendous opportunity to stimulate job creation and economic growth in both the near-term and for the future.

"President Obama believes in the transformative power of broadband. Broadband serves as an engine of economic development, enabling communities and regions to develop and expand job-creating businesses and institutions. Communications networks help improve the efficiency of virtually every sector of the economy. The Obama Administration is committed to harnessing the power of broadband technology to stimulate economic growth, create jobs, and help lay the foundation for long-term prosperity for all Americans. Through the BTOP grant program - and in coordination with the Department of Agriculture's Rural Utilities Service (RUS) grants and loans program - we are taking a critical first step in that direction.

He went on to report that, "the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) recently ranked the United States 15th among the 30 market economies of the OECD in terms of broadband subscribership per capita. President Obama believes that this must change. With access to broadband and the skills to use it effectively, Americans will be better able to compete, succeed, and lead in the 21st century's knowledge-based economy. Our scientists, universities, and researchers will need better broadband connections to continue our great tradition of innovation.

"The broadband initiatives within the Recovery Act mark the beginning of the process that we hope will result in the United States taking its rightful place as the world's leader in broadband deployment, availability, and adoption. To meet this challenge and to fulfill the statutory mandates of the Recovery Act, the Administration has set five goals for the broadband Recovery Act funding.

"Greater broadband availability and use will make a difference in the daily lives of our citizens. With access to broadband, students are able to learn and access resources far beyond their own classrooms or local libraries. Using telemedicine applications over broadband connections, doctors and other medical professionals can bring the latest medical advancements to patients in remote areas, resulting in immediate, efficient, and cost-effective treatment. Over broadband connections, small business owners are able to buy and sell their goods and services in both near and distant markets. Researchers and scientists require high-speed connections to collaboratively develop the new ideas that will keep our country in the lead. And all Americans have the potential to find new ways of making a living, developing and accessing information, and using other applications that enrich their lives using high-speed broadband. Broadband provides communities a canvas for innovation and economic development, that, by reason of either location or economic status, they have previously been unable to utilize."

BTOP Goals

Among the goals for BTOP, Mr. Seifert enumerated the following: "The program is intended to accelerate broadband deployment in unserved and underserved areas and improve access to broadband by public safety agencies. Significantly, however, while the Act focuses on supply stimulus, demand side stimulus is a critical goal. The Act specifies that the program be designed to stimulate job creation, economic growth, and the demand for broadband.

"Other purposes of BTOP include providing funds for broadband education, awareness, training, access, and support to a number of institutions including schools, libraries, educational and job-creating strategic facilities, as well as organizations that provide outreach and other broadband assistance to vulnerable populations.

"In accomplishing the purposes of BTOP, the Act contemplates that NTIA will consult with the states and with the FCC. We are also coordinating our activities with the RUS (Rural Utilities Service), which was allocated $2.5 billion in broadband Recovery Act funding for loans and grants.

"We have been meeting regularly with various state entities as well as with our colleagues at the FCC and RUS and have met with various state entities as well. For example, we are currently talking to RUS about creating a common application form to make it easier for entities to file grant applications with both agencies. We welcome - and indeed are actively seeking - the input of our state colleagues as well as our colleagues at the FCC and RUS as we implement this important program.

"The Act also provides $10 million for our Inspector General (IG) to ensure vigorous oversight of these grant funds. One of the very first actions we accomplished was the transfer of that money to the IG. We have been meeting with the IG and his staff to ensure that the program design incorporates appropriate safeguards from the outset to protect the taxpayers' investment.

BTOP Implementation Activities

Mr. Seifert further reports that, "Since the passage of the Recovery Act on February 17, 2009, NTIA has taken decisive action to jumpstart the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program. The Agency is staffing up to administer the $4.7 billion program. Although NTIA has many talented people already in place with significant grant-making experience, we are in the process of greatly supplementing this core team to handle the high levels of interest. We are also in the process of creating the technical systems that need to be in place to handle the tremendous volume of applications that we anticipate.

"We are coordinating closely with other agencies responsible for implementing related Recovery Act initiatives, such as the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Department of Energy. Through constructive coordination, funds and expertise can be leveraged where appropriate--and duplication and redundancy will be avoided to maximize the utility of taxpayer dollars.

"NTIA has launched its BTOP website to provide the public a window into how the Government intends to invest its money - http://www.ntia.doc.gov/broadbandgrants.

Challenges

As to challenges, Mr. Seifert informed the committed that, "We face many challenges in the upcoming months. Some of our challenges are substantive policy issues. For example, there are a host of statutory terms like "broadband," "unserved," and "underserved" that we must define in order to give guidance to potential applicants. We must also decide the scope of the consultative role the states will play as we review grant applications. During our public meetings, various stakeholders gave us very valuable but divergent views about how we should deal with these issues and we are confident that the comments filed by April 13, 2009, in response to the RFI, will contribute greatly to our decision-making on these important threshold issues. We are very focused on creating metrics and requiring reporting that will allow us to understand whether the grants we make are effective in moving the country closer to the Administration's broadband goals.

"While these challenges will be significant, by far our greatest challenge will be determining a fair, equitable, and appropriate manner for selecting grant recipients. We fully expect a pool of strong and innovative applications that reflect the genius of the American people and together address all of the purposes set out in the Act. Our most daunting task will be to select from among these many deserving applications those that most wisely invest the people's money to create jobs and offer credible, functioning, and scalable models for accelerating the deployment of broadband."

For a full copy of Mr. Seifert's briefing, please go here.

On April 30, 2009, the Citizens for a Digital Future, an Atlanta, Georgia-based coalition of non-profits, organizations and industry members that recognizes that adoption of and access to broadband technology, launched in North Carolina.

Said John Watson, Charmin of the coalition, "In order for consumers to have access to the latest technologies and best services possible, it is imperative for North Carolina to ensure its laws are keeping pace with the proliferation of new and innovative telecommunications options available today.

"Citizens for a Digital Future supports policies that encourage investment in and deployment of broadband and other digital technologies that enhance our lives in so many ways."

The Citizens for a Digital Future has now launched in four different states: Georgia, Alabama, North Carolina, and South Carolina, and will soon, I hope, make its presence felt in the remaining states of our union.

So far the coalition, which is completely voluntary and does not require membership dues or fees, have focused on deployment and administration of the economic stimulus package in its covered states, with up-to-date and interesting information about issues raised and hurdles to overcome in bridging the digital divide.

Other members of the coalition include: at&t, Btech, Inc., CBM of America, Condux, Enhanced Communications, Inc., Entone, Inc., Fiber Source, Inc., and many others.

Off to an auspicious start, I hope that this coalition will soon reach across the country and garner more and more members who share their vision:

"Citizens for a Digital Future recognizes that adoption of and access to broadband technology -- and its enhancements -- has become increasingly critical to the environment, for education, economic development and health care, among others. Our members support and advance public policies that encourage broad deployment and robust enhancement of broadband and digital technologies."

You can reach Citizens for a Digital Future here.

This last Friday, Esther J. Cepeda of www.600words.com checked in with a refreshing update on where the Digital Divide stood (or not) as regards the Hispanic Community here in the United States (which you can read in full here).

A rant "dedicated to all the people out there who are innocently laboring under the misperception that the vast majority of Hispanics in the United States are living in such crushing poverty that they are not able to access information on the Internet."

Not so, she goes on to point out:

• In a recent report called The Power of the Hispanic Consumer On-line, Scarborough Research says that the majority (54%) of Hispanics are now online.

• In fact, Internet access among Hispanics has been increasing at a faster rate than it has among total adults in the U.S - growing 13% (on a relative basis) since 2004 - from 48% in 2004 to its current penetration of 54%.  By contrast, Internet access by all consumers nationally grew 8% during the same time period. (In 2004, 64% of all consumers accessed the Internet, and this increased to 69% in 2008.)

The same Scarborough Research elaborates:

"Younger consumers are more likely to download content online. Forty-nine percent of 18-34 year-old adult Internet Users downloaded digital content in the past month, compared to 35% of the total online population. Similarly, it is no surprise that when you examine this younger demographic of Hispanics, the percentage is even higher. 51% of 18-34 year-old Hispanics downloaded digital content during the past 30 days.

"Hispanics have been taking advantage of the expansion of broadband, and their rate of adoption has mirrored that of the total U.S. population. Currently, 68% of Hispanic Internet Users have a broadband connection in their household. This grew from 13% in 2002 - an increase of more than fivefold."

Refreshing news, indeed.