Peer to Peer - a book Chapter 6 Jabber: Conversational Technologies
6.2 of this book discusses 'evolving toward the ideal' in WWW development. Stating that the WWW fulfills an interactive vision for many it still falls short. The author writes that he envisioned it as a place that people could easily edit and publish -- bringing all closer together and creating more united, thought provoking communities.
While it is true that the Internet has been co-opted by commercialism one must recognize the fact that only (approximately) 50% of people are on the Internet. How can one expect this place to be a blossoming vessel of innovation when it is still inaccessible to such a great portion of the population.
This is something than really exasperates me about the whole "knowledge managment" conversation ...
There are so many people spending huge amounts of money to develop technology that is still inaccessible to huge segments of the population. It is true that there are many groups that are working towards bringing the technology to more of the general population but they can only work so fast and it seems that new technologies are developing faster than they can be distributed to, taught to and used by a vast portion of society.
The most important (in my mind) aspect of KMS is finding new ways to distribute the technologies to a wider segment (eg. ALL) of society. There are so many untapped resources insofar as the creative, social, political wellsprings of people who could do so much with the Internet if only they had access to the technology. Grants such as the Technology Opportunity Grant are aiding in the spread of technology. http://top.bev.net/
Posted by khaack at April 8, 2003 11:57 AMYou said "only 50%...", but in my opinion, 50% is already successful, because everybody shouldn't be involved in any specific technology.