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React Publish your own item

by Sheila Lennon
'Bottom-up' journalism from the pros

May 24, 2002 • Today's weblog

Blogging power to the people: "In response to my question, "Is it too much to ask for a globally wireless box, a sleek, $200 laptop designed for communication via satellite? No spreadsheets, no heavy crunching, not much giggery, just a browser, email and publishing software," Tom Poe of Reno, Nev., writes,

"Hi: Be careful what you ask for!!

"You just asked for what the Hollywood folks are seeking to create. A world in which we will be restricted to "devices" for each task. A device for email, for browsing, for something far less than publishing as you or I envision, for voice, for video, for viewing, not interacting in the "producer" fashion. As Cory Doctorow so beautifully put it, http://bpdg.blogs.eff.org/archives/000113.html#000113

"Hollywood is going to change our world, at your expense, my expense, technology's expense? possibly. But, you know, the technology industry doesn't care, because either way, they make lots of money. I hope you read his wonderful report."
Thanks,
Tom Poe
Reno, NV
http://www.studioforrecording.org/
http://www.ibiblio.org/studioforrecording/
http://renotahoe.pm.org/

Hi, Tom,

I like your free recording studio idea a lot. I just sent the link to a friend here (Sean Sands of Rattlehead Records) who's recording bands live, and has lots of ideas for what the record label of the future will be. I'll be reporting some of them soon, but here's their site: http://www.rattlehead.com/

And thanks for the note. I have read Cory's essay, and it's a caution worth heeding, but I hope that the $200 blogbox idea will be co-opted by the good guys. (We already have portable mp3 players and cell phones, devices restricted to certain tasks. If cell phones merged with a blogbox that let me blog from anywhere in the world for one low monthly fee, I'd bite.)

My deeper interest in the $200 blogbox stems from a longstanding, unabashed populism --> about this technology.

About 7 years ago, Iwas writing something like, "Learn to use this technology or be relegated to the second tier of the future, a mere shopper, your interactivity restricted to uploading your credit card number." But many people won't learn it. If vast numbers of people are to have a voice, many will need easier, cheaper, "anywhere hardware."

For a relatively small amount of money, you could distribute $200 blogboxes on a neighborhood level in a pilot project: If the original seed money offered one to each household, and taught one family member, could other family members learn from them?

I'd love to see a browser interface with simple buttons: "Open new blog item," "Save URL," "Select text," "Copy text to blog," "Link to this page." On the blog screen: "Check spelling," "Save," "Publish item," etc. Once you found a need for something else, there'd be a medium-level interface with more options. (This would be analogous to discovering that the right mouse button offers a context menu.)

What would the neighborhood blog have in it? The mom-and-pop sushi joint on the corner would probably take email takeout orders. There'd probably be complaints about loud lawn mowers and people whose grass is too long, and the lyrics to Harper Valley PTA come to mind.

But sooner or later, there'd be a barbecue, and people would meet the neighbors who call themselves GrassGuy and MrsTom and KewlDude, and become part of each other's lives. (That simplified interface would make people part of the conversation and get them to the barbecue, where they could easily upgrade, buy a used PC from someone they now know who's upgrading further.) The councilman would come, and the neighbors would ever after blog his ears off. Ah here I go again....

I know there are multimillionaire bloggers out there. Would they sponsor such a prototype, and an experiment in using it?

Thanks for sparking this rant, Tom!
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