digital divide

By Jamilah King / Reposted from Colorlines.com

As the 2011 holiday shopping season geared up, the country’s leading mobile wireless carrier, Verizon, announced a special deal. For a limited time only, customers could get the popular HTC Droid Incredible 2 smartphone for free, if they signed up for a two-year data plan. Since the phone’s full retail price is usually more than $430, the deal meant a savings of more than $200 with a new contract. It features a four-inch touchscreen and eight mega-pixel rear camera, along with top-of-the-line video and one of the industry’s fastest processors. It’s everything you need to feel like you’ve got the Internet in your pocket, and for a fraction of the price of a computer. That’s a compelling selling point for many buyers, but particularly so among the black and Latino consumers who are so key to the now-massive smartphone market.

Originally posted on 2/7/11 at Deepmedia.  A man who needed to borrow his son’s phone to apply for a job online. Another person who drove twenty miles to get to a library that had internet. Elder community members who needed to fill out Medicare forms online but could not get access. Youth, independent artists and media makers that need to be able to create and upload media to communicate, enlighten, and inform.

Reposted from NielsenWire on Feb. 4th, 2011.

Don Kellogg, Senior Manager, Telecom Practice Research and Insights, The Nielsen Company

From a Latino leader in South Minneapolis, to a Seneca Nation elder, to a South Minneapolis hip-hop artist and organizer, to a rural newspaper editor, more than 700 Minnesotans demonstrated that the future of the Internet matters during an August 19th, 2010 Townhall with FCC Commissioners Copps and Clyburn---- while 1,100 more watched online through a live feed by the Uptake MN.

(Click to watch recording)

by Rebecca Ohnemus
becca [at] texasmep [dot] org

As an organization grows, they experience a certain amount of pain.  Organizers, allies and volunteers aren't always on the same page.  In fact, they rarely come in with the same experiences, education or goals.  Getting everyone on board often requires cultivating a mutual experience, developing a baseline of information and shaping momentum based on group conception.