Monday, June 24, 2002

Pew Internet and American Life Project Our Mission The Pew Internet & American Life Project will create and fund original, academic-quality research that explores the impact of the Internet on children, families, communities, the work place, schools, health care and civic/political life. The Project aims to be an authoritative source for timely information on the Internet's growth and societal impact, through research that is scrupulously impartial. The basic work-product of the center will be phone and online surveys; data-gathering efforts that will often involve classic shoe-leather reporting from government agencies, academics, and other experts; fly-on-the-wall observations of what people do when they are online; and other efforts that try to examine individual and group behavior. The Project intends to release 15-20 pieces of research a year, varying in size, scope, and ambition. The Pew Internet & American Life Project is a non-profit initiative of the Pew Research Center for People and the Press. Andrew Kohut, the head of the Pew Research Center, will serve as an advisor to the Pew Internet & American Life Project and the chair of its board. Support for the project is provided by The Pew Charitable Trusts. The Tides Center in San Francisco administers the Project's grant from Pew.   comments? [] 10:03:00 PM     Who wants what content how? Three very recent posts (the first two from Cory Doctorow, the last from me) in one place. Broadband *doesn't* need content!. This amazing recent study of broadband adoption shows that content is irrelevant to the broadband experience. Broadband uses crave the ability to contribute to the Internet's distributed conversation and want nothing more than end-to-end connectivity. The online surfing patterns of high-speed users reveal two values that policymakers, industry leaders, and the public should bear in mind: 1. An open Internet is appealing to broadband users. As habitual posters of content, broadband users seem to desire the widest reach for what they share with the online world. As frequent searchers for information using their always-on connection, broadband users seek out the greatest range of sources to satisfy their thirst for information. Walling off portions of the Internet, which some regulatory proposals may permit, is anathema to how broadband users behave. 2. Broadband users value fast upload speeds as well as fast download speeds. They not only show this by their predilection to create content, but also by their extensive file-sharing habits. (Warning: 212k PDF) Link Discuss (Thanks, Will!) [bOing bOing]    Does broadband need "content?". In order to stimulate lagging broadband growth in the UK, ISPs are signing up "content providers." Jeez: "For us, the interesting thing is that everything in broadband has been focusing on speed," says Russell Craig, One.Tel spokesman, "but what we're trying to focus on is content as well. After you have gotten your emails faster, speed is sort of 'So what?', but if you can provide things like big music names, then that's going to drive broadband. MTV is the biggest name in music broadcasting so we really think this is a new stage of broadband." What a load of tripe. You want to know why broadband isn't growing in the UK? How about the fact that getting a DSL line lit up takes three days of solid phone-calls, twenty hours of tech support, and requires you to familiarize yourself with ridiculous, unnecessary technologies like PPPoE and PPPoA (shudder) Link Discuss (Thanks, Matt!) Making The Web Relevant for Underserved Americans: What They Look For.  In March 2000, The Childrenís Partnership released the firstever comprehensive analysis of available online content. The Audit was designed to determine how well existing online content addressed the needs of low-income and underserved Americans. Nine months of original research included discussion groups with more than 100 low-income Internet users, interviews with nearly 100 community technology leaders and other experts, analysis of 1,000 Web sites, and a review of the literature and promising activities across the country. The findings, which provide a benchmark in this emerging field, documented a severe shortage of the kind of information most often sought out by underserved communities across America.We also found that where relevant content did exist, it was extremely difficult to find and was rarely presented in formats that individuals with limited- literacy or limited English-language skills needed. (See Online Content for Low-Income and Underserved Americans, The Digital Divideís New Frontier: A Strategic Audit of Activities and Opportunities, http://www.childrenspartnership.org/pub/low_income/index.html ). As part of The Childrenís Partnershipís commitment to address the online content gap ñ especially as it affects youth opportunity ñ we have continued to monitor the need for, and availability of, content for underserved communities. This Issue Brief: . Analyzes relevant shifts in Internet access, use, and demand. - Provides an updated snapshot of online content. Identifies key changes in the availability of relevant content since our last report.  Introduces The Childrenís Partnershipís response to the content gap ó The Community Contentbank, a set of Web-based resources and tools to assist staff working with underserved communities to use and create relevant online content.  see http://www.contentbank.org  comments? [] 9:46:44 PM     Internet Cafes for the poor--and an idea for libraries from TeleRead (Tip of the Iceberg, David)  Internet Cafes for the poor--and an idea for libra .... Internet Cafes for the poor--and an idea for libraries "Internet cafes in South Africa are providing many with their first taste of the web and e-mail. " - BBC, June 24. The TeleRead take: Thanks to wireless and reduced costs, even the poor will eventually be able to get online from home. Meanwhile Net cafes are one solution. Speaking of which: Do any libraries have relationships with cafes? Computers are not substitutes for library branches, obviously, but are any libraries working out arrangements with cafes and other businesses in low-income neighborhoods? Might be a dirt-cheap way to help reach people in underlibraried areas. Beyond offering the Web, the systems could come up with library-oriented home pages, and allow people to order books from the cafes, with delivery via bookmobile. posted by David Rothman at 10:01 AM | permanent link [TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home] comments? [] 12:49:13 PM     WinMine Toolkit    What is the WinMine Toolit? The WinMine Toolkit is a set of tools for Windows 2000/NT/XP that allow you to build statistical models from data. The majority of the tools are command-line executables that can be run in scripts. Click here or on the icon to see an overview of the files that come with the toolkit.    Download the WinMine Toolkit         Simply click here or on the icon and follow the instructions. Online Tutorial Once you have download the toolkit, you can step through the online tutorial to gain familiarity with the tools. We recommend that you complete this tutorial, which only takes a few minutes, before using the tools for other applications. comments? [] 8:59:00 AM

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