Despite the media coverage of weblogs, Pew finds they are barely on the radar of most Americans:

“Some 4% of online Americans report going to blogs for information and opinions. The overall number of blog users is so small that it is not possible to draw statistically meaningful conclusions about who uses blogs.
The early data suggest that the most active Internet users, especially those with broadband connections are the most likely to have found blogs they like. ”

Pew’s research suggests between one and four percent of Americans publish online depending on what you ask – 1% “Create a web log or “blog” that others can read online” while 4% “Create content for the Internet, such as helping build a web site, creating an online diary, or posting your thoughts online”. That could even just include posting your thoughts to someone else’s messageboard.

To my mind this emphasises the importance of making the weblog and other content publishing tools we have easier and promoting the possibilities they offer over making the tools more sophisticated (though we should be doing both).

Of course making them work multilingually is also going to be key to international adoption, and making them work well offline (so you don’t have to compose while connected).union credit 1stadvantageagricredit iowaunion allegany credit teachers countycredit counseling ammendalice opening credits show videoof tvameritrust credit card financialcsun school accreditation businesscredit union lubbock alliance Map

(Or at least some of the world). It’s a commonplace notion now, but this article on the OpenDemocracy site about the World Social Forum brought home to me the increasing importance and universality of email – not just in the first world but (at least among the political class) in the developing world as well.

“I realised that the wealth I had accumulated was all there in the stack of cards as thick as a blockbuster novel, which I had collected. All the rest I could lose.

Each of those cards is a thread which now connects me electronically with a person in the Philippines, Senegal, Santiago, Morocco or Budapest, a person with whom I have just eaten or taken a bus, a person whom I may never get to visit, but who carries another network of contacts, nationally or internationally, through NGOs or trade unions, a person who from now on will be my correspondent.”

The author goes on to talk about receiving business cards with email addresses from someone living in a shantytown in Cameroon or Guelmine in the Sahara. Being able to communicate with people from such remote regions is a phenomenon only a few years old, as the digital divide in such areas is slowly bridged…

Joi Ito has written a fascinating paper – Emergent Democracy about edemocracy, weblogs, the power law, trust and “emergence” (self-organizing systems).

It’s fascinating and I think it moves the debate along significantly but I don’t altogether agree with the optimism it expresses about the democratising power of weblogs. I also fear it bites off more than it can chew – bravely, Joi Ito tries to tackle edemocracy, privacy and copyright law in a single paper.

See below for a more in-depth initial analysis. In the spirit of the democratic weblogging phenomenon he describes, I welcome further comments.

I wrote a paper recently on a very similar theme: “Do the new digital media enable wider participation in the public sphere?“. I certainly wish I had read Joi’s paper earlier, but I hope mine still has interestingly contrasting things to say and I would be happy to email the full paper to people who are interested in reading further.

Thanks to Cory @ boingboing for the link
(more…)

This is the area I am studying at the moment so I found this special report interesting.

It is a little lightweight but cites some useful books. It maintains among other things that the Internet may not after all be a big threat to authoritarian regimes and that it may lead to more direct democracy in democratic countries. It also goes over familiar ground on the issue of privacy.

The gov’t is apparently promising broadband to every doctor’s surgery as well. And even better, I read that the e-minister grasps the important point that,

“It is no longer enough to have services enabled by 2005, we have to drive up the number of people using them… we have to re-engineer services around the needs of the citizen.”

Let’s see if they can walk the walk the way they talk the talk.
Also, I would like to take issue with the e-envoy who reportedly maintains that the UK had already achieved universal access thanks to the 6,000 UK Online centres and a raft of kiosks in high streets and railway stations. People are not likely to see a broad range of Internet services as part of their lives until they can access them from the comfort and privacy of their own homes.porn movies teachersex movie teacheramateur movies teen webcamteen kelly movieteeny movies sapphicbutterfly movie the effectmovie the doorsbooty thick movies Mapmovie big clips free titmovies dick black freeinternet bootleg free movies adultfree bukakke moviescfnm movies freemovies stocking free xxx dailyfree fuckingmachine moviesmovies free porn full lenght Map

This Salon.com article (no registration required) made me think. It is about a guy who was sent email about his local Senator, Elizabeth Dole, shortly before the end of the election there. My first impulse was, “ugh, spam”. Indeed, on balance it is still my main feeling. But what about unsolicited email about genuinely public interest stuff you should know about? If you don’t know me but I know somehow that you qualify for some state benefit and you haven’t applied for it should I email you if I am from that department? What about “pushing” health information that I know is relevant to you?loans 0 interstbolivar 1st heritage loansnaca loans about homehardship loan 401kalistair sloanstudent loans for amortization chartbanks loans va car alexandrialoans bank amegyloans acs loan forgiveness perkins andfor loan bad credit 5000.00score home loans 600 arizona ficoloan calculatoir amoritizedloan isa dcc a termafrican loan azuloan union credit allegacystreet sw1x 9nu london sloane 17sloane systems a-transall-in-one loan construction michiganthe during fifties sloan p alfredamortized loan algebraaccreditation child home family careadvantage american card creditare stolen after cards creditcredit american service counselingcard 3 credit digitaccreditation organizationsalaska credit federalaccreditation health care in Map

According to a new report which was summarised in the Guardian, despite extensive effort being put into getting Government services online, the British public have shown very little interest compared to other countries. Just 13% of the population had used Government online services in the UK over the last year, less than even the Czech and Slovak republics and less than a quarter of the proportion using them in any Scandinavian country.

Overall in the 28 countries examined, most of the use of e-Government by citizens has been predominantly to seek information (24% of total adult population) compared to just 4% who used the Internet at any point in the year to provide feedback of any kind into the government process. Clearly the potential of the Internet to improve participation in government is barely being tapped.new about equity loans home jerseycredit loan $5000 bad withguaranteed approval loans 100approval guaranteed loan home 100loans 0 new car percentno 20 loans land doclouis st mo loans advancewith 10000 loan dollar small paymentscash 90 loan dayadvantage alaska loans

In E-Government Bulletin last month (only now published on the web) there is a report of an interesting meeting I attended aimed at helping UK civil servants to produce a paper on e-democracy.

It is followed by an editorial by me on how ICT can be used to re-engage people in the political process (my view, in brief, is that technology won’t change anything unless the Government visibly responds to the opportunity it provides).

UK members of parliament don’t tend to read their email so the web to fax gateway FaxYourMP.com is a real boon in putting constituents in touch with their elected representatives quickly and easily. Unfortunately, MPs don’t always read their faxes either, according to some interesting statistics just published by the site. In fact, the Conservative leader, Iain Duncan Smith joined a rogues gallery of 26 MPs who have not responded to any faxes, including six who have publicly stated they will not respond to any.

I tried to use faxyourmp to contact my own MP, Jeremy Corbyn, some time ago and was among the 75% of faxes sent to him which have remained un-acknowledged…

Overall, 61% of faxes to local were responded to within 14 days (the site’s “cut-off date”).dirty moviesmovies homemade webcamclips porno moviemovie adult free formovie amc theatresmovies kiss girlindian movies sexfuck movies lolita Map

I just got back from what we were told (with characteristic enthusiasm) was possibly the world’s first official consultation meeting about a government backed e-democracy proposal – set up by Vox Politics.

Given the general apathy about the subject in the media and among the political elite in the UK, I wasn’t sure if there would be more than about ten people but in the event more than 50 people crowded into a small room within earshot of Big Ben and while neither the e-envoy nor the e-commerce minister showed as had been hoped, some good points were raised and experiences shared. I was glad of the opportunity to see Dan Jellinek, author of the very useful e-government bulletin, Bill Thompson, professional e-gadfly and a number of people I met through Haddock and have seen little of since including Tom Loosemore who is responsible for the commendable Fax your MP site, Matt “warchalking” Jones and Azeem Azhar.

I feel minded to write something at a bit more length about the discussion itself but I would prefer to do so for a newspaper, magazine or newsletter, and in any case it will take a little longer – if you are interested in commissioning something, get in touch…