In India, we have the public call offices (PCOs) -- essentially manned
telephone booths where the revenues are shared between the telco and the
PCO operator. There are more than 600,000 of these PCOs across the
country. There are many Community Information Centres where one can
access the Internet and according to some of my friends who love
travelling across India, these cybercafes are now appearing in remote
locations too.

A couple of examples of Community Information Centres are:

www.drishtee.com
www.e-choupal.com

Venky


Herman Wasserman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> Cliff, this is a very interesting line of argument -- if this way of
> using the internet through an intermediary is a general practice in
> Africa because of the lack of connectivity, it might mean amending some
> of the theories of Internet communication from the idea of the Internet
> as a many-to-one or individualised, customised form of communication to
> one that is similar to the two-step flow of communication, where
> information is mediated by leaders or representatives in society.
>
> Can you perhaps point me to some case studies of this type of mediation,
> or to specific examples? Thanks
>
> Cliff Missen wrote:
>
>> Today, villager's messages are being delivered on paper to a Internet
>> Cafe and then transcribed into email for delivery worldwide by someone
>> who holds an email account. There may someday be a SERVICE that enhances
>> this informal relationship to the point where a single "griot" can
>> manage email accounts for hundreds of clients through a simple handheld
>> device. It'll take a little tweaking of the current email and client
>> software, but it's very possible.





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