Looks really interesting. Must you curate, prepare, and host all information to be shared? Being the arbiter of necessary information to the information-deprived is an expensive process and a huge ethical responsibility. How will you keep it up? Are there other revenue models lurking i.e. sponsorship/ads?
@igamebank@blainehatab we take our editorial responsibility very seriously and will be releasing our first draft of guidelines for public review next week. However, I like to remind people that this model is not new and we will be doing what newspapers, radio and TV have done for ages: choosing what to publish on a limited medium.
What we are also doing is allowing anyone in the world to request content. To your final question, yes, we do offer sponsored content and will offer ads in the future. All of these things, from curated content to sponsored content to user requested content, will be handled in a way that will be extremely transparent and subject to revision when we feel we can do it better.
@igamebank@thanerichard Not 100% worried about you guys, but when a system isn't inherently open I question it. And comparing yourself to the radio, newspaper, and tv industry doesn't alleviate those concerns. I love what you guys are doing, but it's a valid concern for the future.
And let's get real if you got bought out and that company feels like doing different stuff, then it's going to happen despite any good intentions.
@blainehatab@thanerichard Very helpful, thank you for your forthright response. I completely understand the necessity of such measures and trust they will not interfere with the sanctity of your editorial process. It will be interesting to see how you guard it as you grow. Best of luck to you, look forward to seeing the product out in the wild!
@igamebank@thanerichard@blainehatab Hi. I'm the founder of Outernet. We aren't building it to sell. We are building it to be a force of change (which makes it hard to find investors).
Hello everyone! My name is Thane and I work at Outernet. We're thrilled to have Lantern featured on here. In a few days we will be releasing an outline of all the content that will be available over Outernet, which is very exciting.
Lantern truly is an amazing product. It is like a radio that receives data instead of music and it works anywhere in the world. News, weather, sports... and it is a CRITICAL device to have when there is a disaster. We prioritize disaster updates and Lantern works when cell networks or other land-based networks do not.
With Lantern, you will never be in the dark again. I am happy to answer any questions.
@thanerichard Hi Thane, I really admire and respect what you all are doing with Lantern/Outernet. I have a couple questions if you don't mind:
1) What do you see as the primary use on Lantern? Because what I've read about it seems a little scattered. Will it mostly be for disaster situations, or education, or communication in general? Ideally you could do many things, but I'm having trouble telling how you decide on what to broadcast and in what languages.
2) Have you thought of partnering with organizations that share similar missions? For education, I could see this working well with Nicholas Negroponte's 'One Laptop Per Child' vision.
I think this is an awesome solution for accessing important news in rural areas. It accesses data through Outernet.
Quote from their site: Outernet takes the best of the web and broadcasts it from space for every human on Earth. The content we broadcast is determined by anyone who chooses to vote on the most important things to share with humanity.
They're on their final day of funding on Indiegogo and already reached it's target.
Lantern
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