*** Democracies Online Newswire - http://www.e-democracy.org/do *** *** New! Discuss Posts - http://e-democracy.org/do/discuss.html ***
The "information commons" is picking up some new currency in the United States. Over the years, I have seen similar concepts cycle through different parts of the world - from community networking efforts in Canada <http://www.tc.ca/tcadvocacyandreports.html>, <http://www.tc.ca/bc2001.txt> in the mid-1990s to my own early scribblings about the Public Internet <http://www.publicus.net/pi>. Below are a number of links to more recent reports and articles. My general conclusion is that most current "public interest" activity online exists because of commercial or governmental activity. The biggest barrier to developing sustainable collaborative "non-profit" online ventures (that don't collapse the shoulders of one individual) is the creation of the coordinating host mechanism and the resources required make such a thing work. For example, if YahooGroups fails to generate a profit and a shutdown is ever threatened, I'll put out a call to develop a non-profit to take and seek to sustain the most fundamentally important online service in the world today (or at least to the freedom of association online.) How would you construct and fund such an organization? Big question. In the end, any inferior web site/online effort will fail to attract users no matter their ideological/profit motive purity. The non-profit online services that work, understand that what they deliver is more important than who they are and their public interest philosophy and approach. I think our challenge is to find ways that build from public interest motivation in such a way that they truly build better and more cost effective forms of online content and interactivity. Steven Clift Democracies Online New "Information Commons" Reports, Articles, and Legislation: * Saving the Information Commons - Report (83 pp.) New America Foundation By David Bollier Co-Written by: Tim Watts http://www.newamerica.net/Download_Docs/pdfs/Pub_File_866_1.pdf * An Information Commons for E-Learning - Working Paper New America Foundation By Thomas Kalil http://www.newamerica.net/Download_Docs/pdfs/Pub_File_848_1.pdf (More articles are available from this source http://www.newamerica.net - Select publications, reports.) * Digital Promise: http://www.digitalpromise.org Recent announcement: S2603, a bill entitled the "Digital Opportunity Investment Trust Act," was introduced in the Senate on June 11 by Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-CT), joined by Sen James M. Jeffords (I-VT). Citing the precedent of the Land Grant Colleges Act, this act calls for the establishment of a Digital Opportunity Investment Trust Fund to support innovations in education, information, the arts, and culture. It provides 50 percent of the revenues from future spectrum auctions to go to the Fund, which will be used to award grants for training, education, and for research in utilizing new telecommunications and information technologies. Grants will be given to nonprofit public institutions that work to enhance learning, broaden knowledge, encourage an informed citizenry, and teach the skills needed in an information-based economy. Go to the web site for the full text of this and similar House legislation. * A number of items from Peter Levine's web site <http://www.peterlevine.ws/Internet%20work.htm>: Building the E-Commons: A Project of the Democracy Collaborative http://www.democracycollaborative.org/programs/public/BuildingElectronicCommons.pdf Can the Internet Rescue Democracy? Toward an On-line Commons http://www.peterlevine.ws/Internetdemocracy.htm Public Telecommunications Service White Paper http://www.peterlevine.ws/pts.pdf *** Please send submissions to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** *** To subscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** *** Message body: SUB DO-WIRE *** *** To unsubscribe instead, write: UNSUB DO-WIRE *** *** Please forward this post to others and encourage *** *** them to subscribe to the free DO-WIRE service. ***
