According to a recent article in The Economist, "technology is spreading to emerging markets faster than it has ever done anywhere."  The World Bank studied how long it took after the initial invention of a new technology for 80% of surveyed countries to  report use. 

The result are that adoption rates have decreased dramatically in the past 200 years (see graph). Whereas it took 120 for trains to be adopted in "developing" countries in the 19th century and 60 years for aviation and radios to be adopted in the 20th century, it has taken only 20 years for personal

Is the mainstream finally catching on to the grassroots change possiblities of the internet? I must say, this recent article on the BusinessWeek web site isn't half bad. Here's a quote:

The age when organizers can drum up support by sending an e-mail blast is giving way to a new era of online activism, where Web organizers employ social networking groups to mobilize protesters and use media-sharing sites to promote relevant articles, images, and ideas. They are tapping into vast streams of small donor funds through "widgets," small shareable programs easily embedded in Web pages. And they are using new

UPDATE: See the YouTube video below

Trevor Lyman, a supporter of libertarian presidential candidate Ron Paul, decided to help his preferred candidate raise money. He bought the domain ThisNovember5th.com, the purpose of which was to encourage people to make a small donation on that day. The campaign was ridiculously successful. This past Monday, the site raised $4 million for Ron Paul's presidential campaign.

Interestingly enough, the site itself did not even collect the donations, but rather sent site visitors on the the official campaign site, RonPaul2008.com, to make their donation.

Traditional social change orgs are beholden to rich people. Internet organizers aren't.

On Wednesday I wrote a post about why grassroots digital activism is potentially more revolutionary than institution digital activism. My logic was based on a fuzzy proposition that institutions necessarily have "credibility, legitimacy, and resources" invested in the status quo, which makes them more likely to seek victories within the current system than try to create a new system.

Well, I'd like to flesh that argument out a bit by focusing on the resources part. The fact that social change institutions need a lot of money to operate

One of the basic tenets of anarchist thought is the gift economy, an economic system in which goods and services are given without any explicit agreement for a reciprocal gift of money, good or services from the receiver. Basically, in a gift economy, if someone needs something which you have the ability to give, you give it, and vice versa. Most people consider gift economies to be rather silly and utopian ("someone's just gonna give me a new cell phone - yeah right!"), but what few people realize is that a