Six Billion Bloggers - The $100 Laptop

If Nicholas Negroponte, MIT Media Lab head, can pull off his vision for the $100 laptop, there could be six billion bloggers on planet earth. 

About a week ago, Negroponte gave the world press a peek at the the laptop's early prototype images.  In the democratic, altruistic ethos of the digital community (think Esther Dyson's "Release 2.0"), the laptops will not be sold.  Instead they will be distributed to schools through government initiatives.  Of course, the students using these laptops will bring home to the adults the gospel or good news about what can be put out there in cyberspace.  And how easily and cheaply.

The story here for some is whether Microsoft, Dell and other established brandnames are quaking in their boots at this threat to their pricey digital products and services. 

But the story for most smart, opportunistic capitalists should be how they can become associated, directly and/or symbolically, with this global movement to close the digital divide.  Remember in its better days, Coca-Cola wanted to teach the world to sing? Today, it could help the world get digital by donating funds to the nonprofit association, One Laptop per Child (OLPC).  That could restore the magic to this iconic brand.

Here in America, leaders are already taking this initiative seriously.  For instance, there is buzz that Massachusetts is looking into having this $100 laptop throughout its school system.  If every one of the children displaced by Katrina and Rita can get a laptop -- soon -- there's a much brighter future for them in their new locations. 

As for this capitalist, moi volunteers to teach the world to blog.  I invite the rest of the blogopshere, in the same spirit of giving that we demonstrated during Katrina, to also pitch in and help.  In his next book on blogging as a neo-countercultural force, David Kline will have to analyze the implications -- profound -- of the $100 laptop.