Evangelical Business Model
This is rather strange. Can't quite recall the convoluted, nested-link sequence that led me to find this page, but earlier today I came across this EmailWeb service.
EmailWeb describes itself as: "...an Internet service that delivers fully formatted web pages by email. Many people who would not otherwise be able to access the web are able to by using EmailWeb. People have this need for a variety of reasons."
The site goes on to give a number of examples of how and why such a service might be of use around the world. This is actually not a bad idea at all. From the broadband-saturated comfort of a major North American city, it's all too easy to fall into the habit of expecting everyone to have the same access to the Web as we have. And it's remarkable how much one comes to depend upon the Web when it's there.
We had an outage in our offices for a few hours yesterday morning - leaving us with no access to the Web, although we still had email. There were things I absolutely needed to pull from online sources to help push my work forward. EmailWeb might have helped.
The strange thing about EmailWeb, though, is a quirk in the subscription model the site offers. For US, Canadian, and EU residents, the service costs US$18 per year. For people outside of these territories "...you can earn a one year subscription to Emailweb, by reading the Gospel According to Matthew and completing a quiz of 12 questions. You will need to get 10 of the 12 questions correct to earn the year's subscription."
Wow. A Web service that aims to bridge the digital divide and simultaneously act as a Gospel missionary. Well, at least he's direct about it.
A one-year subscription to "Uninstalled" is still free, btw. But for a limited time only, I'm prepared to throw in an extra three years for the same low price to the first ten people who read the whole of "Bottersnikes and Gumbles" by the Reverend S.A. Wakefield and can correctly answer 10 simple questions.
EmailWeb describes itself as: "...an Internet service that delivers fully formatted web pages by email. Many people who would not otherwise be able to access the web are able to by using EmailWeb. People have this need for a variety of reasons."
The site goes on to give a number of examples of how and why such a service might be of use around the world. This is actually not a bad idea at all. From the broadband-saturated comfort of a major North American city, it's all too easy to fall into the habit of expecting everyone to have the same access to the Web as we have. And it's remarkable how much one comes to depend upon the Web when it's there.
We had an outage in our offices for a few hours yesterday morning - leaving us with no access to the Web, although we still had email. There were things I absolutely needed to pull from online sources to help push my work forward. EmailWeb might have helped.
The strange thing about EmailWeb, though, is a quirk in the subscription model the site offers. For US, Canadian, and EU residents, the service costs US$18 per year. For people outside of these territories "...you can earn a one year subscription to Emailweb, by reading the Gospel According to Matthew and completing a quiz of 12 questions. You will need to get 10 of the 12 questions correct to earn the year's subscription."
Wow. A Web service that aims to bridge the digital divide and simultaneously act as a Gospel missionary. Well, at least he's direct about it.
A one-year subscription to "Uninstalled" is still free, btw. But for a limited time only, I'm prepared to throw in an extra three years for the same low price to the first ten people who read the whole of "Bottersnikes and Gumbles" by the Reverend S.A. Wakefield and can correctly answer 10 simple questions.
"The end of the world is coming and there's no time for breakfast."
