Digital Citizen Pulse

We're all familiar with the online purchase options: nowadays they are major credit cards or PayPal (mostly).

The problem with any of these is the overhead fees that the vendor (bank or PayPal) charges which normally amounts to a fixed per-transaction fee, plus a percentage of the value of the transaction.

Were you to buy a $10 item online using your credit card, the merchant would probably pay something like $0.60 in fees to the vendor, and receive $9.40 for the item.

Were you to buy a $1 item the same way, the vendor would probably pay $0.35 in fees, receiving $0.65. That means that the processing fees are 35%.

Should you buy a $0.30 item using your card from this merchant, he or she would probably end up owing the card vendor a cent or two: not the model of a profitable venture.

Micropayments

The notion of micropayments (as small as a fraction of a penny) has been around for as long as the Internet, give or take. On the surface of it, it is a great idea. You want to read a very interesting blog entry, right on topic, and it's certainly worth the $0.05 that the writer is asking. If only there was a way to pay this, without incurring a $0.35 overhead fee doing so.

At the turn of the millennium a host of characters attacked this problem and offered solutions: FirstVirtual, Cybercoin, Millicent, Digicash, Internet Dollar, Pay2See, MicroMint, and Cybercent. None of these firms is around today.

An interesting article written by Clay Shirky in 2000 offered several reasons why micropayments will never make it. It is an interesting read, and still fresh food for thought. His pain point: users don't like it. They'd rather buy a collection of blogs for $1.00 or a subscription for $10 a year.

Over the next few years--while the credit cards got into the full Internet swing of things, and PayPal grow beyond eBay's pet (yes they own PayPal) payment system--not much happened in the micropayments arena. Then the economy turned, and now there is speculation (again) that micropayments is an idea whose time has come.

In November of last year, a Forbes article reported that American Express had just bought RevolutionMoney, a startup, for $300 Million. While they don't yet offer micropayments as a service, they do offer MoneyExchange, a PayPal like service for Free (a good sign) which you can also use to receive payments from readers of your blog, also Free to both writer and reader--though both must be RevolutionMoney account holders.

And that is a micro step in the right direction. Perhaps even it.

For the past year, Aleks Krotoski has worked on a four-part documentary for BBC2 on the Virtual Revolution, aiming to identify the political, social, economic, and psychological implications of the Internet. In doing so he came across, and interviewed a host of characters, from the web pioneers like Sir Tim Berners-Lee (credited with in essence inventing the World Wide Web), to the e-upstarts like Jack Dorsey who revolutionized online socializing when he co-founded Twitter in 2006.

His Guardian article is well worth reading, and I wish I lived in the UK so I could view his documentary.

From the outset of the Internet, my enthusiasm for the wonder of it has always shared the stage with this louder-at-times-than-others voice of dissention, warning about the dehumanizing and dare I say robotizing effects of the Internet. When words like "real world" started cropping up as the exception to on-line life, well, then I got a little nervous, and I believe I had a right to.

For one thing, we believe, as Krotoski points out, that when we interact with the Internet it's just us and It, but really, few things could be farther from the truth. When we ask Google to show us this or that which we are truly interested in, a whole network of note-taking software make entries against our name (or IP address more likely) about our preferences in every field conceivable, entries which are then shared with commercial companies who use it to customize offers specifically for us. Helping advertisers, and others who want to tell us something that might benefit them, adjust the cross hairs comes to mind.

Krotoski also points out that depending where we stand in the political, or even religious, spectrum, wonders like Twitter are either a blessing or a curse. Keeping us abreast of all our heroes' doings, or informed about the time and place of a protest rally, Twitter can do no wrong. Helping coordinate a fundamentalist bomb attack, it becomes evil incarnate.

Children and teenagers who grew up with the Internet, according to Krotoski, no longer search for answers at the depth their Internet-free parents might have done. One Google search term, and the top two or three replies might just do it: just like in our old days, if it was printed in the paper, then it must be true--now it's: if Google returns it, well then it must be true.

Now, of course the Internet is the most amazing communication medium conceivable, don't take me wrong, I do love it; but that voice of dissention will not shut up and it keeps invoking the Sorcerer's Apprentice of Disney's Fantasia trying to master the ever multiplying brooms running amok. Along the lines of getting the Genie back into the bottle.

And the Genie is out, irretrievably out. The thing to never lose sight of, however, is the humanity of who should be the master of it, not mastered by it.

A very interesting article in the NY Times brought to light an amazing change of heart by Jaron Lanier, who in the 1990s was one of the main proponents, and enthusiastic visionary, of the "everything-is-free" Internet.

His recently published book "You Are Not a Gadget" evidences serious second thoughts, and raises the flags against "hive thinking" and a "digital Maoism" which demands from each according to his ability, and to each according to their needs.

Being himself an artist who is apparently having trouble generating online revenue from his creative efforts--due to the current "open culture" were "information wants to be free"--he laments the fact that getting your due as a creative artist is almost frowned upon today. "Reciprocity takes the form of self-promotion," he writes.

As a writer myself, I not only sympathize, but agree. I have posted nearly a hundred works on Scribd, including poems, stories, novels, and songs. Most of these are free, but ask for a voluntary contribution if the reader/listener feels like it (I list my PayPal account).

In the last nine or so months these works have been viewed by nearly 30,000 people. Guess how many have offered an exchange? Yes, you guess it: Zero.

I strongly believe that the Internet can (and should) allow creative writers and musicians to live on their efforts, but it seems nearly impossible in today's climate.

However, Mr. Lanier (who you can see interviewed in this short YouTube segment brings up the great (and not in the least new) concept of MicroPayments as a solution to this.

The problem with current payment systems is, of course, that a credit card company, or PayPal, does not want to see $0.05 payments--they'll lose money processing it. Yet, if each reader of my works on Scribed had paid me $0.05 (which possibly they would have), I would have seen a $1,500 exchange today. Not that I could live on this, but it's certainly a step in the right direction.

Microsoft was reputed to have worked on a MicroPayments System in 2007, but not much has been heard since.

If implemented correctly, viewing an artist's work would incur very small fees, in the cents region, and would not set the viewer back by much. It would be quite affordable, while at the same time remunerate the artist.

I will do some more research in this area and report back. I think it is an idea that has great merit.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy and former French Minister of Culture, Jacques Toubon (both defenders of France's cultural heritage in the digital age) seem to have hit upon the solution to protecting home-grown literary and musical initiative by developing a new revenue stream to support this artistic output.

Two very interesting Wired articles: "France Considers 'Google Tax' to Pay Creative Work" and "France's Sarkozy Uses Tired Media Playbook to Push 'Google Tax'" take a dim view of this, and are well worth reading.

According to a proposal made by a government-commissioned survey, and leaked to the Liberation newspaper, the French President is considering taxing foreign Internet companies who do business in his country, an initiative already colloquially referred to as "the Google Tax."

This, France's latest effort to resist the freewheeling free-for-all culture so prevalent on the Internet, comes on the heels of its recently enacted New Internet piracy law--one of the strictest in the world--under which repeat illegal downloaders will be fined as well as disconnected from the Internet.

I am not passing judgment on their intentions, and I firmly believe that creator of works of art should see the direct benefit from such efforts, but I'm not sure those benefits should be funded by tax on successful Internet businesses; that appears to me the lazy way, and very much along the lines of "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need (or needs)" or should we say "greed?" Sounds familiar?

For all the flack Rupert Murdock is taking for wanting to charge for the Internet content he funds, I believe his approach is the fairest. Internet content does not appear spontaneously and at no cost, someone has to fit that bill. The enjoyment of such fare should remunerate its creator.

According to the two "Wired" articles, the commission suggested, "Taxing Internet service providers to raise tens of millions of Euros that would be invested in developing the online music business and other creative sectors. For example, they propose offering government-subsidized online subscriptions and expanding online publishing platforms," presumably those in the French language.

The French President is up against two formidable obstacles. The first, and most important, is that, lamentably, fewer and fewer--in this age of digitally-grown illiteracy--actually gives a damn about the finer points of literature or about the French musical heritage; the online world is heading for English as its mother tongue, and if you actually have to read the stuff, what's it doing on the Internet?, the home of gaming, porn, and social networks.

The second obstacle is that the ethical standards of Planet Earth seem to sink by the minute, as the prevalent view gains momentum: why should I pay for something I can get for free? It is a Me, Me, Me world now, and that mentality is a formidable hill for any defender of Culture to climb.

(Second in a series)

Last week's blog introduced the Swedish Pirate Party, which is acting as a model for a group of similar parties springing up in Europe (primarily), Australia, and South America. There is also a United States Pirate Party. All of these fall under the Pirate Party International umbrella.

Most of these parties are seeking the required membership to register as a bona fide political party in their respective homelands.

Their goals are similar: copyright reform, internet freedom, and end of all forms of censorship.

Let's take a look at copyright.

Copyright - The Perceived Problem

The Swedish (mother) Party claims that the current copyright system is "unbalanced" and therefore holds the view that file sharing (such as music, videos, etc.) should be decriminalized.

According to their Declaration of Principles:

"Copyright was created to benefit society in order to encourage acts of creation, development and spreading of cultural expressions. In order to achieve these goals, we need a balance between common demands of availability and distribution on the one hand, and the demands of the creator to be recognized and remunerated on the other.

"We claim that today's copyright system unbalanced.

"A society where cultural expressions and knowledge is free for all on equal terms benefits the whole of the society. We claim that widespread and systematic abuses of today's copyrights are actively counter-productive to these purposes by limiting both the creation of, and access to, cultural expressions.

"Privatized monopolies are one of society's worst enemies, as they lead to price-hikes and large hidden costs for citizens. Patents are officially sanctioned monopolies on ideas. Large corporations diligently race to hold patents they can use against smaller competitors to prevent them from competing on equal terms. A monopolistic goal is not to adjust prices and terms to what the market will bear, but rather use their ill-gotten rights as a lever to raise prices and set lopsided terms on usage and licensing.

"We want to limit the opportunities to create damaging and unnecessary monopoly situations."

Copyright -- The Proposed Solution

The Swedish Pirate Party Declaration of Principles goes on to say:

"When copyrights were originally created, they only regulated the right of a creator to be recognized as the creator. It has later been expanded to cover commercial copying of works as well as also limiting the natural rights of private citizens and non-profit organizations. We say that this shift of balance has prompted an unacceptable development for all of society.

"Economic and technological developments have pushed copyright laws way out of balance and instead it infers unjust advantages for a few large market players at the expense of consumers, creators and society at large.

"Millions of classical songs, movies and books are held hostages in the vaults of huge media corps, not wanted enough by their focus groups to re-publish but potentially too profitable to release. We want to free our cultural heritage and make them accessible to all, before time withers away the celluloid of the old movie reels.

"Immaterial laws are a way to legislate material properties for immaterial values.

"Ideas, knowledge and information are by nature non-exclusive and their common value lies in their inherent ability to be shared and spread.

"We say that copyrights need to be restored to their origins. Laws must be altered to regulate only commercial use and copying of protected works. To share copies, or otherwise spread or use works for non-profit uses, must never be illegal since such fair use benefits all of society.

"We want to reform commercial copyrights. The basic notion of copyrights was always to find a fair balance between conflicting commercial interests. Today this balance is lost and needs to be regained.

"We suggest a reduction of commercial copyright protection, i.e. the monopoly to create copies of a work for commercial purposes, to five years from the publication of the work. The rights to make derivative works shall be adjusted so that the basic rule will be freedom for all to make them immediately. Any and all exceptions from this rule, for example, translations of books, or the usage of protected musical scores in movies, shall be explicitly enumerated in the statutes.

"We want to create a fair and balanced copyright.

"All non-commercial gathering, use, processing and distribution of culture shall be explicitly encouraged. Technologies limiting the consumer's legal rights to copy and use information or culture, so-called DRM, should be banned. In cases where this leads to obvious disadvantages for the consumer, any product containing DRM shall display clear warnings to inform consumers of this fact.

"Contractual agreements implemented to prevent such legal distribution of information shall be declared null and void. Non-commercial distribution of published culture, information or knowledge - with the clear exception of personal data - must not be limited or punished. As a logical conclusion of this, we want to abolish the blank media tax.

"We want to create a cultural commons."

The Ethical Dilemma

The dilemma here is that the average Internet Citizen leaning in the Pirate Party's direction feels, or openly states that, and certainly acts as if, everything on the Internet is or should be free.

Free to read, play, download, share, or copy.

In an ideal universe, perhaps. One where no labor, no cost, no sweat, no talent, no work has to be invested in order to produce such download-able and share-able work.

The view of the Swedish society has long been that "the world owes me a living," and the political parties play along. Today, the Swedish worker who is ill, or too tired to report to work on any given day, is paid just as much as his colleague who does drag himself out of bed and reports for, and performs, his duty.

The Pirate Party makes a good point in the advantages of availability for all, but this cannot, and must not, be free. The creator, especially the Internet Creator, must be able to live on his labors, and if he were to post a work for purchase and this work was then bought once--and thereafter copied and shared with the rest of the world, he will soon starve to death. A fact that will stifle creativity more effectively than anything will.

A Balance

Any proposed laws or changes to copyright systems have to protect the Creator of the Work. Not necessarily any subsequent owners of such copyright (they are sometimes bought and sold as commodities, and treated as investment opportunities).

But, unless the Creator of the Work is paid for his labor, his talent, and his work, he will first cease to work, and then cease to live, and there is nothing balanced about that.

(First in a series)

A new Swedish website was launched on January 1, 2006, heralding the first purely digital political party in the world:Piratpartiet (The Pirate Party).

Its aims were clearly stated and included:

Main Goal: To promote global legislation to facilitate the emerging information society.

Regarding Copyright: Claiming that today's copyright system is unbalanced, the party's position is that file sharing (e.g. music) should be decriminalized.

Regarding Patent Laws: Holding that privatized monopolies are one of society's worst enemies, the party's position is that patents are obsolete and should be gradually done away with. Regarding patents on pharmaceuticals, the Pirate Party proposes increasing government support for R&D to make up for loss of private R&D if there were no patent protection for innovation.

Regarding Personal Privacy: Holding that all attempts to curtail these rights (e.g. privacy) must be questioned and met with powerful opposition, the party's position is that anti-terror laws nullify due process and run the risk of being used as repressive tools.

Six Phases

At launch, the movement mapped out six phases of activity, announcing the first as the collection of at least 2,000 signatures (500 more than required to participate in the upcoming September 17 general election). In less than 24 hours the Party had collected over 2,000 signatures (2,268), evidencing a wide interest among the Swedish Internet savvy.

A day later, the Party closed the signature collection phase with a total of 4,725 signatures.

As such signatories, by Swedish election law, are required to identify themselves when giving support for a new party; this feat caught the international media's attention and was widely reported at the time.

However, signatures presented to the Swedish election authorities must be handwritten, which initiated a follow-up phase. This was accomplished by February 10, when over 1,500 handwritten signatures had been acquired and presented to the election authorities. Three days later, the authorities presented the Pirate Party final confirmation as eligible to partake in the upcoming Swedish general elections.

Phases two to five included registering with the Election Authority, getting candidates for the Riksdag, raising money for printing ballots, and preparing an organization for the election, including local organizations in all municipalities of Sweden with a population in excess of 50,000, which as of 2005 this meant 43 municipalities. During this phase fundraising was also started, with an initial goal of raising 1 million Swedish Krowns (roughly $125,000).

The sixth and final phase was the election itself. The Party, which claims that there are between 800,000 and 1.1 million active file sharers in Sweden hoped that at least 225,000 (4% of all the voters in Sweden) of those would vote for the party, granting them membership in Parliament.

While this threshold was not reached in the 2007 election, the picture may look differently after the 2010 general elections, considering that the Pirate Party received 7.13% of the total Swedish votes in the 2009 European Parliament elections, which was originally to result in one seat in the European parliament, but became two when the Lisbon Treaty was ratified.

Christian Engström became the first MEP for the party, and Amelia Andersdotter took the second seat after the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty on December 1, 2009.

Today, the Pirate Party (according to their site) has a total active membership of 48,544, making it the second larges political party in Sweden.

Considering, too, that the Pirate Party has become a model for similar political parties springing up in Europe, it is a movement well worth following since it may become the model base for the digital citizen.

According to a recent ABC television report Tuesday December 21 saw Chicago Mayor Daley joined by the Federal Communications Commissions chair Julius Genachowski in announcing further steps taken to close the digital divide and improve Internet service in Chicago South Side neighborhoods.

The announcement was made at the greater Southwest Development Corporation and dubbed the "Smart Communities" program.

The program's goal is to turn 63rd Street into a center to improve digital access and training across the city.

"Technology can enhance opportunities, improve our knowledge, especially the work skills, expand our economic development, encourage innovation, and boost Chicago's ability to compete in a global economy," said Daley.

Planned family Internet centers will offer a variety of programs and hands-on training in several locations including the southwest reach center in the Chicago lawn community and Kennedy-King College in the Englewood neighborhood.

Mayor Daley further said that the city of Chicago is committed to closing the digital divide and that he supports efforts to take wireless broadband internet access to poor communities.

To facilitate this, both Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard are donating equipment and millions of dollars to help launch these neighborhood projects.

According to a WGN television report, Mayor Daley also stated that efforts like this are crucial in the global economy, and that he believes that government at all levels needs to commit to connecting America to the world and the future.

A Chicago Sun-Times article further reports that the plan to flood Englewood, Auburn Gresham, Chicago Lawn, Pilsen and the latest addition, Humboldt Park, with technology was hailed by Federal Communications Commission Chairman as a model for the nation.

"As we develop the national broadband plan in Washington, we're paying a lot of attention to the smart actions being taken in cities like Chicago," Genachowski said.

Daley also argued that bridging a digital divide that has left nearly 40 percent of Chicagoans with little or no access to the Internet is as important to cities today as paving streets and building water and sewer systems was in the 19th and 20th centuries.

"These tough economic times demand that we roll up our sleeves and redouble our efforts to address the challenge of the digital divide head-on," Daley told a news conference.

In addition to flooding the five neighborhoods with technology, Chicago has also applied for $110 million in federal grants for laying fiber to further improve Internet access throughout the city.

By all signs and accounts, the city of Chicago seems committed to tackle the digital divide head on, a stance worthy of applause.

Between them, MySpace and Facebook rule the roost. In fact, 65 percent of all visits to social networking sites land on one of these two; and on its own, Facebook grabs more than 6 percents of all visits in the United States, period.

So what makes up the other 35 percent? According to the Experian Hitwise database of online usage of more than 10 million U.S. Internet users, there are now more than 5,580 social networking sites beyond Facebook, MySpace and Twitter. Amazing.

While MySpace and Facebook are fairly general town squares in the digital world of ours, more and more demand is created for special interest sites (such as model airplane construction, diving, and barefoot hiking), leading to a virtual (pun intended) explosion in niche networks. There's a good chance that such a network exists to meet your particular demand.

Bill Tancer recently wrote an article that covered some of the up-and-coming sites.

Some samples:

Launched in 2004, Yelp.com allows visitors to review restaurants, bars, doctors, dentists, etc., for the benefit of the many. This site initially took off in the major cities such as San Francisco, New York and Los Angeles, but has since grown in popularity and influence throughout the United States.

Are you Interested in reviewing a new restaurant in your neighborhood? Yelp.com is your site. Some of its reviewers recommend new venues, while others go one step further and suggest what to order. After returning from dinner, do your part by returning the favor: post your own review.

Then there are sites like BuzzNet.com, which is a social network built upon music, personal taste and favorite artists. Other sites, like TMZ.com and PerezHilton.com cater to the celebrity obsessed, while Zimbio, a user-created Ezine covers a variety of topics, and has been gaining in popularity of late.

If you are looking for deeper and more meaningful exchanges (at the opposite end of the pendulum from Twitter's 140-character shorthand), there are social networks like Gather.com which caters to precisely that.

Or, you want to give (or need) advice, say about what to do as a new mom. Cafe Mom and Momversation are built to provide just that.

Then there are the fix-it type networks, such as FixYa.com, a social network whose mission it is to help you solve problems with your car, computer, light fixtures, waffle baker, or anything else that you can think of.

The French writer Romain Gary once said, "What man needs most of all is friendship," and I don't think he could have hit the nail more squarely on the head. The amazing number, and versatility, of digital social networks bear witness to the veracity of that. Man likes to communicate and to share. The digital age facilitates that, in spades.

A very interesting article on msnbc.com highlights corporate and business use of Twitter as a marketing and/or PR tool. This article outlines the criteria for this selection (including a minimum follower count of one million) and some other factors that have bearing on the final list.

It is amazing to see how fast business not only embraces but also adopts new technology, this is a list of great examples.

Some local governments, most noticeable the City of San Francisco, has also made brilliant use of Twitter, which was covered in this DC article. 
 
Here the, without further ado, is the The Big Money Twitter Top 12 list:

1. The New York Times -- Followers as of 12/1/09: 2,138,846 (and growing), with as many as 40 posts a day.

2. E! Entertainment -- Followers as of 12/1/09: 1,816,118, with 29 posts a day.

3. NBA -- Followers as of 12/1/09: 1,634,613; posts continual updates of games each night.

4. CNN -- Followers as of 12/1/09: 2,812,339; the greatest amount of followers in the Top 12.

5. Whole Foods Market -- Followers as of 12/1/09: 1,619,330; fielding queries across the Twitterverse.

6. BNO News -- Followers as of 12/1/09: 1,458,048, with the greatest common sense name @breakingnews, now pointing back to msnbc.com.

7. Etsy -- Followers as of 12/1/09: 1,116,364; an online craft-dealer fielding customer queries and promoting its wears.

8. Health Magazine -- Followers as of 12/1/09: 1,102,452; fewest followers of the Top 12 at this point, fastest growing, talking about all things health.

9. Jet Blue Airways -- Followers as of 12/1/09: 1,479,647; an airline customer service feed.

10. Silcon Alley Insider -- Followers as of 12/1/09: 1,249,653; an automated feed of all Silicon Alley Insider publishes.

11. Dell Outlet -- Followers as of 12/1/09: 1,449,866; primarily used to announce new deals, at the rate of one or two a day.

12. Amazon MP3 -- Followers as of 12/1/09: 1,340,390; special deals and promo links has seen a 42 percent growth over the last two months.

This is Twitter proving itself digitally useful quite beyond belief.

A Recent DailyTech article highlighting the plans of Intel, Dell and others to bridge the Digital Divide through their Every Citizen Online (ECO) project drew some very interesting comments pro and con (but mostly con).

Welfare State

Opined one commentator, "Computers, the Internet, and broadband are not rights. They're luxuries, and I don't like my tax dollars being used to provide luxuries to other people. Nowhere does the Constitution say that every citizen is entitled to be able to watch YouTube videos."

Opined another, "I hate welfare, redistribution of wealth, entitlement programs....everything the government takes money from me and spends on someone else who is too lazy or stupid to get for themselves."

And yet another, "If people in outlying areas want broadband, then they should have to pay for it themselves."

Answered a pro, "I'm sure there were people who thought that rural electrification and telephone service were luxuries in the first part of the 20th Century. Fortunately their views did not prevail, and I hope your attitude toward the internet and broadband meet the same fate."

And here's the crux: if the remote and rural areas were to pay for broadband service at the rate it will initially cost to provide this to them, the Digital Divide will never be bridged, since that single household in northern Montana cannot fork over the $2 Million it'll cost to pull fiber to their village.

Yet, that village may sprout and grow to something quite fantastic would it get online and join the rest of the world (should it want to, that is) both in terms of commerce and services.

In fact, this village, based on increased population and tax revenue alone may over time pay back the $2 Million a few times over to a government that may make (or subsidize) such an infrastructure investment.

The Constitution

True, our Constitution does not prescribe computer ownership and broadband access as a divine, every-citizen right. Neither, however, did it prescribe universal telephone access, which in the end was in fact provided by a Ma Bell that by law was guaranteed to make a modest profit, no matter what it spent, and to that degree was indeed subsidized when it had to pull dial tone across fifty miles of wasteland to reach remote customers.

I'm all for everyone working for a living and paying their way, but there is a mountain of difference between calling your local cable company and ask them to hook you up, and paying for 50 miles of fiber in order to join the 21st century.

The jury, as usual, is still out.