February 2010 Archives

As you may have read, Wikileaks, the controversial whistleblower site, has run out of cash to meet operating costs, and have temporarily--so they hope--suspended operations.

They announced last December that they planned to cease operations, except for the anonymous submission tool, until they could raise enough cash to continue operations.

So far, they have not been able to meet its projected exposes. As of 2/22/10, their site reports that they have raised a little over $350,000 but they need around $600,000 for their annual budget.

The site will stay closed while their administrators work to raise funds.

A question on their main page asks: We protect the world -- but will you protect us?

They then go on to say: "We have received hundreds of thousands of pages from corrupt banks, the US detainee system, the Iraq war, China, the UN and many others that we do not currently have the resources to release to a world audience. You can change that and by doing so, change the world. Even $10 will pay to put one of these reports into another ten thousand hands and $1000, a million."

The site has received awards from Amnesty International and has been praised by media groups and others for providing a forum for whistleblowers, political dissidents and others to expose corruption and suppression and foster transparency.

Enter Iceland

According to a New York Times article, Iceland's parliament is now considering placing laws on the books that will foster genuine transparency, and in effect providing a save Haven for journalists with stories too hot to handle at home.

In fact, the plan to make Iceland a world leader in journalism protection took shape in December with the assistance of two leaders of the whistle-blower Web site Wikileaks.org, Julian Assange and Daniel Schmitt, whose publish-nearly-anything ideology has given them personal experience with news media laws around the globe. Reading between those lines, perhaps Wikileaks is relocating to Reykjavik.

This article is great food for thought, and highly recommended.

There are good news and not so good news (though not quite bad).

According to a Palo Alto Online Article, Palo Alto has just taken a big step in closing the Digital Divide with last Tuesday's announcement of a successful launch of a community-wide Wi-Fi and broadband access system--called "Digital Village."

The new "Digital Village" will serve both East Palo Alto and eastern Menlo Park, with the goal to make disadvantaged communities "totally technology enriched and enabled" under a national technology-stimulus program of the Clinton Administration, with a huge local boost from Palo Alto-based Hewlett Packard Co. and, more recently, Google, the California Emerging Technology Fund and many individuals.

Now with companies like that in your back yard, it would be surprising indeed if not even digital cracks were fixed sooner rather than later.

Faye McNair-Knox, Ph.D., of One East Palo Alto outlined the path of what is now becoming "Wi-Fi 101," and recognized those who made the progress possible.

She said some in the community a decade ago wanted to make the "digital divide" reputation go away. "Ten years later I'm proud to say that the East Palo Alto Digital Village is now alive and well and cooking."

She added that more needs to be done, but much has been done. She added that one goal is to find better ways to reach out to persons with disabilities to help them link into the Internet in ways to help their lives.

On another front, Blackweb 2.0 reports in a David Sutphen guest blog that, although some progress has been made, it's far from enough.

"Over the past ten years," reports Sutphen, "Americans have enthusiastically embraced and adopted broadband Internet. Although we have made significant progress, a real digital divide still exists in the African American community. The Obama Administration's $7 billion stimulus investment in broadband and technologies like web-enabled smart phones are helping to close this divide, but we must continue to do more to ensure that our community gets connected.

"Simply put, broadband has become a critical life tool. Whether it's looking for a job, managing your finances or healthcare, pursuing a higher education, staying connected to friends, family and community, high-speed Internet is the great enabler and equalizer.

"There are many more effective ways to address the digital divide than divisive new regulations unrelated to adoption or deployment, which bring a high degree of uncertainty and could have unintended consequences.

"The FCC should invest its time and political capital where the returns are highest:  in the National Broadband Strategy--a common goal for all parties--if it really wants to help connect every American to the benefits of high-speed Internet. The net neutrality distraction will disserve efforts to remedy persistent digital divides and imperil critical elements of the National Broadband Strategy."

Sutphen goes on to outline ten reasons why then new FCC internet regulations impede the common goals of connecting all Americans and closing the digital divide (which you can read here), stressing that continued net neutrality is a must for closing the Digital Divide, and that the current debate about net neutrality or not is shifting focus away from bridging the divide to a quibble concerning those already online.

To underscore his point, he states that, "In a 2009 poll of 900 African Americans and Hispanics conducted by Brilliant Corners Research, led by Obama Presidential Campaign and Democratic Pollster Cornell Belcher, 43 percent of these minorities cited either not knowing how to use the Internet or not seeing the need for the Internet as the reason why they are not online; however, 44 percent of these same respondents said they would be more likely to subscribe to Internet services if they were provided free lessons on how to use the technology and 30 percent would be more likely to adopt if they had more information about how they could benefit from going online."

In other words, worry more about the people not yet online--for whatever reason, than about potential spoils among those already digitally enabled.

Broadband access is fast approaching the status of basic utility, like water and electricity. The FCC should act accordingly.

David Sutphen at the Internet Innovation Alliance, calling net neutrality "a distraction," today listed ten reasons why the Federal Communications Commission should get busy closing the digital divide rather than dreaming up new regulations.

With his list, "10 Reasons Why New Internet Regulations Impede Common Goals of Connecting All Americans and Closing Digital Divide," David outlines what he sees as the real issues to address in broadband adoption. According to his list,

• The net neutrality debate, which only concerns those already online, is a distraction from creating an effective National Broadband Plan. The people who have the most to lose from this balancing act are the socially and economically disenfranchised - members of rural, low-income, urban, tribal, minority, non-English speaking, unserved and underserved populations.
• Experts on the digital divide have not cited "lack of net neutrality regulations" as either a cause or a cure for race or income-based differences in broadband adoption. The current net neutrality war that has erupted in Washington, DC has very little to do with the interests of the unserved and underserved.
• Today's open Internet is making possible huge innovation. We reduce the possibilities and raise barriers if we don't give everyone access to smart networks.

As the deadline of March 2010 for the FCC to issue the national broadband plan is drawing near, organizations and interest groups--in order to alert both the FCC and the public--are stepping up the volume about what elements they believe the plan should contain.

Please visit IIA's website for the full list.

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.