I have been doing some research and I found out that there have been already some attempts to bridge the email with the traditional “snail” mail service. Before going any further, it would be helpful to review what the digital divide is, and why it is important to pay attention to this issue.
What is the Digital Divide? (Source: digitaldivide.org)
“Digital Divide” refers to the gap between those who benefit from digital technology and those who do not. It took digital-divide researchers a whole decade to figure out that the real issue is not so much about access to digital technology but about the benefits derived from it.
Examining the situation more closely, it turns out that upper-to-middle classes have high-quality access to digital technology because the profit motive pushes technologists to work hard at creating “solutions” designed specifically for them. In this equation, however, the poor are ignored because the assumption is that designing solutions for them will not be profitable. The result is that even where the poor are provided access to digital technology, it is low-quality. Furthermore, the digital technology they do have access to is often of a design that ends up being harmful rather than beneficial. This, in turn, widens the digital divide.
The new view is that closing the digital divide will be most effectively achieved through a two-pronged approach, one direct and the other indirect: The direct approach will be for governments and businesses to work together to change the incentives that shape digital markets. The indirect approach will be for them to team up on e-government digital technology initiatives that extend rural health care and quality education to the poor. Through these two approaches, the poor will be able to reap many of the same benefits from digital technology now derived by the wealthy.
Why closing the Digital Divide matters? (Source: digitaldivide.org)
1) Closing the Digital Divide is a precondition for reducing poverty.
2) Closing the Digital Divide is a precondition for resolving terrorism.
3) Closing the Digital Divide is a precondition for achieving sustainable world markets.
Let’s take a look now at some statistical information; this will be helpful to try to understand the market.
Market segments can be defined by interest, income (purchase power) and access. The causes for the digital divide can be grouped in those 3 categories.
1. Interest: we can’t argue about the need to communicate and have access to information. We are social beings (or at least most of us :P). It is more useful to define interest by desires (instead of needs); that would give us a better insight on when and how people choose to communicate. Using “Symbolic segmentation” we can find the real behavioral drivers. (Wilensky, 1986)
2. Income: People on the base of the pyramid (BOP) are living with less than 5 dollars a day (Source: The World Bank). Pay-as-you-go and Pay-per-use experiences have proved successful in these scenarios, allowing people to have unprecedented access to new technologies. Microsoft’s FlexGo experience in Brazil and mobile phone penetration are good examples of technology adoption.
3. Access: There are several aspects:
3.1 Geographical: Geography poses sometimes a real challenge for distribution of products and services trough conventional channels. Superdistribution and viral marketing could be beneficial and help eliminate or reduce costs and difficulties. Urban centers have better infrastructure and therefore can benefit from lower costs and easier access to services. From the point of view of service providers, urban centers result more attractive than rural areas, because the population has a higher level of income and is concentrated in a smaller area.
3.2 Economical: Low income makes it difficult or impossible to have access to products that are currently thought for developed markets. Internet access price is dropping but still very high for the base of the pyramid. As the networks speed keep on getting faster, and market grows reaching a critical mass, prices will tend to drop more and more.
3.3 Financial: The lack of good financial support such as banks and credit cards makes it difficult to have credit access for acquisition of products and subscription to services. In addition, 89% of the secure servers are in English (Source: OECD), creating another barrier for the 71% of non English speakers that actually use the internet. (Source: internetworldstats.com)
3.4 Cultural: There have been a lot of improvements on user interface (UI) design that have shortened the learning curve and improved user experiences; nevertheless, it is estimated that 1/6 of humanity is illiterate (855 million people) (Source: UNICEF). Trying to include them will be a new challenge on product and interface design. We can see some attempts that have taken place in India, where in some Cyber Cafes, though the use of audio commands and manipulation of symbols, illiterate people can have effective interaction with the computer.
Other cultural barriers are:
3.4.1 Language: Different methodologies have been used to measure the language distribution of web pages. FUNREDES states that by 2000, 45% of total internet contents were in English; while other reports from OCCL state that in 2003, 72% of web pages were in English. OCCL in my opinion has used a more accurate methodology in the survey. (Source: UNESCO)
We should now consider that the actual 327 million English speaking internet users only represent 29% of the total internet population. (Source: internetworldstats.com)
Another interesting fact is that 91% of Fortune 500 and Forbes 800 companies could not respond correctly to an email in a foreign language. (Source: The WorldLingo Quarterly Email Survey - April 2001)
3.4.2 Age, gender and race: These are believed to be temporary and sometimes require government intervention. Most of them are also a result of social and economical differences Anyway, special consideration can be taken in account for the product and UI design.
3.5 Structural: Having reduced, discontinuous or no access to basic services and infrastructure is a hard barrier to overcome. There have been attempts to solve some problems but the necessary technology is expensive in most cases and not very efficient yet.
3.5.1 Energy: The lack, interrupted access and/or bad quality of electricity pose a new challenge for service and products to be successfully implemented. Standard products and business models are not appropriate under these special circumstances. Harvesting, generation and storage of energy is improving, but promising solutions such as micro fuel cells and new solar panels are not yet mature.
3.5.2 Networking: The latest distance record for WiFi using WiMax technology is 382 Km at a speed of 3 megabits per second in each direction (Source: Escuela Latinoamericana de Redes). This looks to be a good solution for transporting a broadband signal to remote areas, but it could still be difficult to implement in some regions. As an example, there are places that don’t even have phone lines because people steal the wires to sell the copper. This is a clear example that even with a cheap, available and mature technology; the service cannot be implemented without maintenance and other special considerations. I honestly don’t see technicians repairing a broken node in a very remote and hard to access location in a short time. OLPC includes a new mesh networking technology that allows interaction within the community even if a connection to the internet is not available. I still would like to find out more about battery performance when mesh networking is being used. Distances on rural areas are big, and mesh networking may not be sufficient to have network access. The latest reports show that internet penetration in Africa is 4%, Middle East 10%, Asia 11%, Latin America 14% (Source: internetworldstats.com). A good solution should be cheap, easy to operate and to maintain.
3.5.3 Financial: As I have previously mentioned, the lack of secure servers in local language; a stable economy and a strong bank system that gives access to credit, makes it difficult to implement subscription based services.
