Finally, The Internet As Intended.

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Community Wifi for lower-income communities just got a much needed enabler. For just $79 Netequality, an Oregon-based 501c(3) nonprofit is now offering a modified “wall plug” version of Meraki’s Mini PCB wireless mesh network router hardware.

They have already deployed networks in six communities, where one (or more) broadband internet connection is plugged into a NetEquality router and one wall-plug repeater is needed every 4 houses or so.

What a great partner for other nonprofits that need their information and services to reach communities that typically have poor internet penetration. I could envision some very interesting programs that couple the planning and installation of a mesh network with specific information services for residents.

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Ross Mayfield says it’s tipped, Stowe Boyd agrees, and John Edward’s every move is public. It appears that Twitter has blown up. The tool seems amazingly frivolous at first glance. I setup an account 7 months, posted one message, and stopped. Then this morning I saw this - http://sxsw.twitter.com - and you start to get it. How do we set one of these up for NTEN in DC?

 

 

 

The USAToday.com today launched a redesigned site flush with participatory features. Kinsey Wilson and John Hillkirk, the executive editors, have a great message about the paper’s mission and how embracing these new social features will help enhance the way it creates and delivers the news.

Our website has a new look. But the real change is in the approach, not the appearance.

…In many ways, it is an extension of the mission we set for ourselves nearly 25 years ago when the newspaper first launched: to present the news of the day in a concise, accessible, even entertaining fashion that was, above all, respectful of the reader.

But it is a mission recast for an era in which readers are inundated with information, have little allegiance to a single news source, struggle to assess the credibility of what they read and have the capacity to share their own insights with a wide audience.

Wow. Quite a message. Kudos to USA Today for seeing the writing on the wall and making a decisive statement on the future of news.

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The Washington Post is reporting this morning that the US Patent Office will soon launch a pilot project to tap into the collective intelligence of the web to help them vet patent applications. I love seeing adoption of these web2.0 techniques applied in appropriate places with a real potential for postive impact - and this is one of those. It will be interesting to watch things develop. From the Post:

The Patent and Trademark Office is starting a pilot project that will not only post patent applications on the Web and invite comments but also use a community rating system designed to push the most respected comments to the top of the file, for serious consideration by the agency’s examiners.

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