A sad truth emerged when a few misguided souls actually suggested that the Internet be considered for a Nobel Peace Prize earlier this year: While there is great potential for the Internet to be used for good, many projects that seemed like good ideas in theory have fallen short of reality on the Web.
Sure, Twitter, Facebook, and other social sites have been used to get the word out about various political struggles, but the idea that the Web by itself qualifies as a peacemaking entity in its own right is nonsense. The Internet is only a tool for good, albeit a powerful tool when in the proper hands. Sadly, a lot of proper hands can't seem to get a grip on the Net, and the potential of the Web to better humankind simply hasn't been realized.
Indeed, the Web is littered with the detritus of worthy projects that began with fanfare and ended with little or nothing of substance – except the disappointment of supporters who rallied 'round only to see their causes evaporate. Whether dreams of putting online technology to use involve improving the lot of urban dwellers, increasing the quality of education, making government more accountable to its constituents, or ensuring better use of the Web for healthcare, many have simply disintegrated into lost bits.
All this is a testament to the questionable motives of some project initiators, as well as a lesson in the need for greater persistence in putting a good cause above what's expedient or immediately profitable online.
In this report, Internet Evolution explores the good ideas that have fallen short on the Web, as well as some great ideas now at risk of being lost. We also discuss what causes this shortfall of good intentions and what can be done about it. What do these failed projects teach us about questionable motives, the need for ethics, and our priorities as creators and users on the Web?
Without further ado, we present Opportunities Lost: Why Good Internet Ideas Burn Out.
So how instead should world-saving organizations be helping educate rural areas?
I at least like the idea that the OLPC units are ruggidized.
Of course, most of the non-American non-European world accesses content via cell phone, so perhaps we should have Negriponte shift focus and have us buying ruggedized iPhones or iPads.
I agree - simply throwing laptops at children is throwing money away - and unguided use of the laptops may mean children are simply wasting time playing games or chatting instead of seeking out useful information and relationships. A much better way to bring the benefits of the internet to remote villages is the Questionbox which Alan Reiter wrote about on IE in 2009.
Well, coltree, I'm viewing corporate obligations in theory, not practice. Just because the reality falls short of where it needs to be is no excuse for dropping the values of free but lawful enterprise.
"And actually, business are obliged to do more than make money. They must follow the laws of the lands in which they make that money. And making that money doesn't preclude planning for the betterment of the societies they hope will sustain their ventures long term."
Wow you must live in the States, there's no law in Oz forcing social conscience on corporations. Our companies are run for pure profit - pillage, rape and burn and white collar crime generally attracts very, very light sentences.
Haven't most of the big boys in the banking sector gotten off scott free after collapsing the world into the GFC.
I have no argument with the proposition that every child deserves an education. At the same time I have some sympathy with Trevor's point which - if I understand him correctly - is that it's pointless to offload laptops or other sophisticated communications devices on families unable to meet the bare necessities of living.
These families need help, but this isn't the place to start. Computers in schools for children attending schools sounds much more realistic.
Agreed, Mary. The freedom to make money is based on following the laws at a minimum and contributing to a larger benefit to society in better companies. The whole point of creating an awareness of what companies like Google are destroying (in opportunities) rather than creating and building will reduce the opportunity for the game players to win at that game.
It doesn't matter how you dress it up, greed and crime are no better in white collars than blue collars; in fact, they are worse. It's up to all of us to call it what it is - which is what is great about this article.
I was not speaking of what should be. I was speaking of reality. Ideally, every child should have an education. Unfortunately, that is not what actually happens.
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The US National Security Agency learned the hard way that it can be dangerous to give a contractor too much money and access, with too little scrutiny. The NSA and other government agencies hire tens of thousands of contractors
a year to analyze data. Edward Snowden -- who revealed himself as the NSA leaker after fleeing the country -- was one such contractor, reportedly holding a $122,000 salaried position at Booz Allen Hamilton at the time of his departure.
Midsize businesses rarely achieve the same standards of security in their own datacenters as professional providers that specialize in delivering these services to organizations.
It was about 10 years ago when a new generation of software-as-a-service (SaaS) alternatives started to gain acceptance and adoption among organizations of all sizes. And it has only been about five years since Amazon Web Services captured the marketplace's attention with Amazon EC2 and Amazon S3, which opened the door to a vast array of infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) offerings. Now, the third piece of the cloud computing puzzle is beginning to win over organizations seeking to build their own apps: platform-as-a-service (PaaS).
Big-data and analytics tools enable marketers to understand customers as individuals, identifying unmet needs and addressing each customer as a "segment of one," says John Kennedy, VP corporate marketing, IBM.
New York's Metropolitan Transit Authority is conducting a pilot test of digital kiosks to guide subway users to where they want to go more efficiently and at lower cost.
The whole Amazon.reader debate is a double-stupid. It's stupid to think that there's any e-book buyer who doesn't know Amazon's URL, and it was stupider to let ICANN launch the whole free-form TLD initiative to start with.
While NFC's original goal was to enhance mobile commerce applications, it is finding its way into a number of other uses, which is creating both opportunity as well as challenges for IT departments.
Enterprises would like to move to cloud computing but are hesitant because they are concerned about providers’ ability to secure company data. Here are some tips that help to ensure that if breaches occur, the business is not left holding the bag.
Edmunds separates customers into segments based on the info it collects on its site and from partners, and uses that to push out custom content, said Brian Baron, director of business analytics for Edmunds.com, at Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit.
The IBM Smarter Commerce Global Summit in Monaco kicked into high gear today, and we've already begun to see news emerging from that lovely city-state by the sea.
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