MTN & Portals
From:
Peter Fleck
Date:
2007 Nov 12 16:23 UTC
Short link
Great discussion. Everyone is raising good points.
FYI: I am serving on the Digital Inclusion Fund Advisory Committee
(DIFAC). This is the group that, along with the Minneapolis
Foundation, is handling the money from USIW negotiated with the
Community Benefits Agreement. We have $200K right now and we are going
over proposals. I mention this because DIFAC has been mentioned as the
group that will monitor portal content in the long run. (We aren't
doing it yet.)
Native language content has been a selling point of the community
portal system. The RFP from DIFAC also highlights that.
MTN has content in a variety of languages that would be almost web
ready. (Video prep for the web is not difficult.)
The Community Portal system is still coming. The wireless network is
still coming. Whether it will eclipse public access cable in targeted
groups (i.e. groups mentioned around digital inclusion) is still to be
seen.
MTN is serving a need. I spoke with an employee for MTN today, John
Akre, and he said Somali call-in shows on weekday afternoons see a
constantly ringing phone. He also mentioned that via anecdotal
evidence, people will gather to watch shows. So a single point of
cable access might serve a much larger group. The Internet just
doesn't lend itself to that yet.
Some data from 2004 surveys and evaluation is available at their site.
http://www.mtn.org/Video/about/franchise.html
Given all this, it sure looks to me like partnership and collaboration
are the way to go. MTN is a ready source of foreign language content.
They have teachers to provide training in producing video.
After the portals are established, maybe one community media group
encompassing both MTN and the Community Portal Services could be
established. Just a thought.
The way I see it, MTN is doing much of what the portals will do
eventually. But I think we are at least a year away from a vibrant
online portal community.
.