ashish Saboo wrote: > Don , Taran , > > The Pandora box needs to be addressed. Wherever the Telecentre (Cyber cafe) > business model was based on shared usage or pay per use model to bring in the > services within the consumer's reach have faced similar obsolescence. > Our estimates put even in the up market locales in Metro cities of India, cyber > cafes have reduced to a third from its peak in 2000 (Dot Com boom). >The telecentres have been the business martyrs but look at their contribution: > > But where did the people go? Did they stop using the internet, or did they get it at home?
> Much of the success of South Korea in bringing over 70% broadband penetration is > attributed to the PC Bangs, The Bangs have offered as a " Technology Introduction > center “ further have played an important stop gap role in bringing IT to Koreans. > To get the requisite ubiquity in Internet access needs good indigenous & relevant > content. While content development industry needs numbers to justify the investment. > In this chicken and egg situation, The PC Bangs offered the numbers in this > gestation period. Some reports estimate, the Korean local content industry took > over 4 years to develop after the infrastructure was in place. (Imagine your > investment in computers would have been redundant before you could figure out the > purpose to use it!). > > I'm in Content Development (with a twist, mind you) - and you're absolutely right about the market needing to be there. But on the flip side, does one need a company to create content? And in some cases, we have to consider whether a company should be responsible for content... Thus Open Content. The content which is Open permits anyone to use it and adapt it - which includes translation and the more important cultural translation. A company could do this, but without lots of money and resources, it will not happen fast. But if people start using and creating more Open Content, then there will be a rapid increase - perhaps rapid enough. The question then becomes... how does one make money creating content? That's a problem that needs to be addressed, and it's more a problem because of the way the publishing system has worked in the past instead of what will happen in the future. It's odd that in discussing Telecentres, we have removed a lot of geographic barriers. Perhaps our business models and governments need to catch up. > In developing countries where investment in basic infrastructure competes with > investment in ICT, The government bodies have limitation in committing investments > to Telecentres. The private initiatives are best bet & hopefully our exchange of > view may offer insights to make investment in such ICT centers lucrative. > > I agree 100% with this... to deny it would mean that I'm not paying attention where I am. :) -- Taran Rampersad [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.linuxgazette.com http://www.a42.com http://www.worldchanging.com http://www.knowprose.com http://www.easylum.net " It requires greater courage to preserve inner freedom, to move on in one's inward journey into new realms, than to stand defiantly for outer freedom."— Rollo May _______________________________________________ telecentres mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mailman-new.greennet.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/telecentres To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
