Africa's Read-Write Web Sites

Eric Hersman writes about ICT at his blog White African He's just made a great graphic at Flickr using the logos of the sites and adding a linkto each of the sites.   Check it out!

The information in the graphic is really useful.  But I think it's worth noting his clever idea of using the notes feature at Flickr to make an interactive graphic.  That's an idea worth stealing.

Flickr is a great resource.  One of the technologies that has some use in many African contexts is the AlphaSmart computer, in particular the Neo.  Basically it's a very simple word processing ocmputer.  The amazing thing is that it gets at least 70 hours--ususally more--power from just three AA batttery cells.  So the machine is a great interface between Internet connected computers and areas--like schools--without electricity.  The company used to host a great fourm page, but when it was sold the users moved the forum to Flickr. 

These sorts of  "out of the box" ways of thinking are important.  When we think about Click4Africa attention to revenue is worthwhile, but it's the ideas which will make the revenue possible.  So it's good not to be too boxed in by thinking of money.