John Hibbs wrote: > At 5:13 PM +1300 1/23/05, Nicki Gemmell wrote: > >> Hi Andy, Not trying to be too difficult here, BUT, for many people >> not is the States, asking us to call a US phone number is going to >> cost money. >> How about setting up a gmail account and asking for mp3 attachments >> (a la >> Adam Curry) or asking people to ftp mp3 links to their own or even your >> website? > > > First a wee bit background to put this in context. (1) I lived outside > of the U.S for twenty years and know something about the cost of phone > calls. (2) For almost ten years we had a software capability that > allowed anyone to make an ordinary phone call and the voice was > automatically uploaded and attached to a web page that anyone who > could type could create for himself or herself (3) efforts to > affordably link the phone to the Net are something I salute "body and > soul". > > Now the "but".....sent with a smile and a hug.... > > One of my pet peeve's is about reasonably well-off, technically > capable individuals who resist making international phone calls for > purposes such as Andy has outlined. It seems to me they ignore the > additional costs - in the most precious of all commodities - (time). > How much *additional* time does it take for Andy to accept MP3 files > internetted to him? And how much money the phone call actually cost? > (European rates to the U.S, by prepaid phone cards, are a few cents > per minute;slightly more to East Asia and Latin America. Few places on > the planet cost more than U.S.0.30 cents per minute. A five minute > call thus costs less than US$1.50.
I suppose that depends on what one means by 'reasonably well off'. And I also suppose that $1.50 US isn't that much for some, but it's a whole lot to others. All things being relative and subjective - which they are, even when one has lived abroad - asking to post an emailed MP3 is just as technically difficult as asking for someone to call a long distance phone number to 'mobcast'. And that's just ONE end of the bargain, the other end is people outside of the U.S., on 56K connections or slower, downloading the MP3s. Why on earth would someone wait 15 minutes to download 3 minutes of someone saying 'uhh' way too much (as I and many others do)? And I do take exception to 30 cents a minute US for long distance calls to the U.S. > > For me, the monetary cost is not nearly as important as the work to > complete the circle that (a) phones are ubiquitous, reliable, > friendly, and in except in rare cases, affordable (b) linking them, > affordably, with blogs, email, RSS, etc. is crucial - that is if we > intend to have an impact on the five billion who have never touched a > keyboard. Monetary cost... value. What is the *value* for someone to call a long distance phone number and discuss anything with anyone? 'Mobcasting' isn't even a discussion, it's just a one way conversation being recorded at long distance rates. It's *value* is subjective, and because of the inherent cost of a long distance phone call as well as the ability to listen to audio *broadcasts*? What, people suddenly forgot how to use keyboards? Text remains the best way to communicate across the internet. Audio, video... telephone... in 3 megabytes of audio how many words can be communicated, even in OGG format? Because in plain text, we're talking about 1,048,576 characters. With a 256kbps connection (down), transfer rates allow for a 3 megabyte file to be downloaded in 2 minutes. With a 56k connection, it can take up to 12 minutes. So whatever value one perceives is related to the content, the context and the affordability to the user and the bandwidth of the recipient. http://www.knowprose.com/node/1235 And still... what more do I gain from hearing a voice? -- Taran Rampersad [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.linuxgazette.com http://www.a42.com http://www.worldchanging.com http://www.knowprose.com http://www.easylum.net "Criticize by creating." — Michelangelo _______________________________________________ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
