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The New Digital Divide
Seth Godin (my fav. marketing author and thinker) writes about the new digital divide.
The Digital divide is :
The short definition is that the haves would have reliable, fast access to the Net, which would give them employment and learning opportunities that others wouldn't be able to get. This would further divide those with a head start from everyone else.
The New Digital Divide:
I think a new divide has opened up, one that is based far more on choice than on circumstance. Several million people (and the number is growing, daily) have chosen to become the haves of the Internet, and at the same time that their number is growing, so are their skills.
| The Digerati | The Left Behind |
|---|---|
| Uses Firefox | Uses Internet Explorer |
| Knows who Doc Searls is | Already has a doctor, thanks very much |
| Uses RSS Reader | RSS? |
| Has a blog | Reads blogs (sometimes) |
| Reads BoingBoing (or Slashdot) | Watches the Tonight Show |
| Bored with Flickr | Flickr? |
| Gets news from Google | Gets news from Peter Jennings |
You need to read the rest of Seth's blogpost to get the idea.
I think he is onto something right now. I am not a "geek" in any sense atleast not a technical guy. But I would like to call myself technologist. I believe in the power of technology to make a difference.
I write blogs, I read SlashDot, I use Firefox, yes uses Flickr (not yet bored), Yes yes RSS and ofcourse News from Google. I do know Doc Searls!
So there could be other factors which you can add.
The important thing is that this could be the new demographic for marketers to understand. The people who can use the new internet tools to spread new ideas wide and fast.
posted by Suhit Anantula @ 12:42 pm
3 Comments:
Interesting ideas. I am not digerati by that description. But I don't think I would want to be anyway.
I do not necessarily disagree, but it is very much centerred on the finer points among us who live in the developed world.
The Economist offered an interesting perspective some time back, stating that the real digital divide was between those with access to telecommunications services and those who do not.
Hmmmm. Given that I just came back from Pakistan, where I worked six months to launch a new cellular service, I should possibly write a blog on that....
What rubbish - Firefox fragments your memory so your computer progressively gets slower the more you use it, to sum it up - its a piece of turd and yet somehow I'm on the "left behind" because I see Firefox for what it TRUELY is.
To be honest, categorising Internet users into anything less than the billions of people who use it is retarded, just like categorising humans into "male" or "female", this isn't a binary world.
Togwash.
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