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Friends and family – I never, ever write emails like this. But this year is different. I’m now working at Free Press, a national media reform nonprofit devoted to increasing the diversity and accessibility of the media. Given that we are a nonprofit that depends on public support, I’m asking for your help.

As you know, the media — the Internet, TV, print journalism — is the lifeline of our democracy. Left or right or in the middle, we all depend on it to make sure that we have the facts we need to make sound decisions at home and in our communities. No matter what you do, you need a solid, dependable media system to help you do it. And I think you’ll agree with me that our media system needs to fixed.

That’s where Free Press comes in. We’re fighting for media reform on several fronts, urging the FCC and Congress to pass rules and legislation that would help create fairer and more accountable media. Here are a few examples of what we do:

We’re on the front lines of Net Neutrality, the fight to ensure that you will continue to have access to any kind of online content, whenever you want it — without big companies like Comcast and Time Warner getting in the way. This is nothing less the protection of online speech. More here: http://www.savetheinternet.com.

We’re pushing back against the proposed Comcast-NBC merger, which is simply bad for consumers and democracy. More about that here: http://www.freepress.net/comcast.

We’re just about to see success in the form of the passage of the Local Community Radio Act in the House, which would bring fresh music, news and views to thousands of communities across the country. Find out more at http://www.freepress.net/lpfm.

And we’re pushing to free your phone — supporting legislation and FCC action that would wrest power away from carriers like Verizon and AT&T and steer it toward consumers, so we can stop seeing such outrageous cell phone bills and actually have choice in the mobile marketplace. More at http://www.freepress.net/freemyphone.

There’s much more happening at Free Press; go to http://www.freepress.net to learn about it all.

And please – if you like what you’re reading, and support what we do, consider donating to the Free Press Action Fund. Even the smallest bit — $5, $10, $15 — helps. Go here to contribute: https://secure.freepress.net/site/Donation2?df_id=2260&2260.donation=form1

Thanks, and have a wonderful holiday season.

Nevertheless, the desire to connect is strong, and there are many ways to engage it, even if that engagement is fleeting. Bold headlines often do the trick. A sharp design that doesn’t call attention to itself, but appeals to users’ emotions, usually helps. But I’ve found that online designers, writers, and producers often overlook a simple fact about their audience: people rarely see what you want them to see.

I’ve spent much of my working life producing content meant to be viewed online, and whenever that content has involved words — as, um, this does — I’ve had the nagging feeling that my intended audience just won’t be able to focus on it. Not if there’s too much of it, and not if it doesn’t reach out and grab them in a visceral way. Every day, I labor long and hard over the text people will read in an email or a blog post.  Somewhere in the back of my mind, I’m convinced that if I make the perfect argument people will see things my way.  I’m deceiving myself; most people never finish the piece, and never get to that witty comparison between “big media” and “bigger media” that’s buried in the 5th graf.

This disconnect between producer and audience applies to every kind of site.  You write a blog post featuring a complicated argument, and your readers take away the opposite point. You create a community site and make the registration and sign up process as easy as possible, but still no one can figure it out. Back to the drawing board you go.

Once again, users — accustomed to being immediately taken with a site, or else they take off — simply don’t always see what you want them to see.

Coder Jeff Atwood recently looked closer at this phenomenon. First, he jokes that users don’t read anything you put on the screen. But then he gets serious.

When I said users don’t read anything you put on the screen, I was lying. Users do read. But users will only read the absolute minimum amount of text on the screen necessary to complete their task. I can’t quite explain it, but this kind of user myopia is epidemic. It’s the same problem, everywhere I turn.

Perfectly put. As an online writer, that means one thing above all: don’t write one word more than you have to.

- The New Republic has, somewhat surprisingly, published not one but two pieces that made it on my radar this week. (I say surprisingly because TNR almost never makes it out of the Beltway and into my general awarenesss; I don’t think I’m alone).

One was Jeffrey Rosen’s Net Cemetery, an excellent overview of Net Neutrality for noobs. Rosen focused on the Comcast case in which the FCC punished the telecom giant for blocking peer-to-peer activity on its network. That case is ongoing, so keep a lookout for it.

The other piece is a piece against transparency (you read that right), by none other than Lawrence Lessig, who argues that the movement for transparency in government might not be the panacea it purports to be.

Here’s the setup:

These [transparency in government] projects assume that they are seeking an obvious good. No doubt they will have a profound effect. But will the effect of these projects–at least on their own, unqualified or unrestrained by other considerations–really be for the good? Do we really want the world that they righteously envisage?

These are fine questions. Read on for Lessig’s answers. In short, Lessig fears that transparency will unleash more bad than good, mistaking “reform” for what is really best for the public.

If you want a shorter, more biblical version, try this.

- I cried with laughter while watching this video, which used Xtra Normal, software that lets you marry a script to animation. The video describes the encounter between a graphic designer and his client, from the designer’s POV. I can sympathize, though I wince at the thought of which side I’m usually on.

- A great article by Michael Tomasky about the rise of the conservatives Tea Partiers.  Lots of wisdom in there, and lots to be afraid of.

- Finally: can tweets change the world? If Jim Gilliam has anything to do about it, then maybe it can. My pal Nancy Scola describes the evolution of Gilliam’s act.ly — a wonderful Twitter petition site — and through an exhaustive list of usage scenarios and users, makes it clear that Gilliam’s idea is just now starting to sprout wings. Fly, little act.ly, fly.

- It’s been a big week at Free Press headquarters, as we’ve seen one of our signature issues — Net Neutrality — make huge strides toward becoming the law of the land.  I remember well when the Save the Internet campaign washed across the web back in 2006. I didn’t know much about Free Press then, but thanks to the campaign I knew about Net Neutrality and how important it was to protect the open Internet. It’s a great feeling to now be so involved in the issue, and helping it become a reality.

With a solid statement by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski and followup statements from President Obama and some top congressional leaders (including Nancy Pelosi), it looks like, at the very least, the FCC is going to inscribe these rules in stone. That will be the cap of some very hard work by my colleagues over the years. Needless to say, there’s been a lot of backslapping in the office.

If this whole notion of network neutrality is a bit much for you to grasp, some recommended reading.  First, check out the New Yorker’s interview with Genachowski himself, in which the Chairman does a good job of laying out some fairly wonky arguments.

Then, see David Weinberger’s excellent posts on the issue. Weinberger is justifiably excited, as the open web is at the very core of what he’s been writing about for more than a decade. His good-natured, intellectual brand of humor almost — almost — hides his contempt for the telecoms that want to protect their fiefdoms and decide what content we can access, and when. Almost. (See the astroturf BroadbandforAmerica for a sense of the disingenuouses of the big ISPs).

- Seth Godin is valuing non-profits’ success with social media by the number of Twitter followers they have. Ok, so it’s not that simple, but he doesn’t go a whole lot deeper than that. As you might expect, nonprofit techies aren’t happy.

- Want to get retweeted? Here’s how. It might seem cheesy to work so hard for a retweet, but if you’re in the advocacy business it pays to get other people to spread your message for you.

- An oldie and a goodie: McSweeney’s on Email Addresses It Would Be Really Annoying To Give Out on the Phone. One of my favorites: MikeAtYahooDotCom@hotmail.com

Since we’re going back around four years or so, back in November of 2005 I blogged about the One Laptop Per Child (formerly $100 Laptop) project, an idealistic initiative started by MIT’s Nicholas Negroponte with the goal of arming millions of kids in developing countries with cheap, networked, Linux-powered laptops.  I had the chance to see Negroponte discuss the venture in person, and at the I end I was hopeful and skeptical at once.

To oversimplify his goal, Negroponte felt that just bringing these machines to kids in need would unleash all kinds of learning and innovation. Skeptics worried that there wasn’t enough of a focus on teaching kids — or their teachers — how to use these machines. Plus, by partnering with developing countries with vibrant black markets, there was a significant chance that these computers would never even make it to their intended recipients.

So how’d it fare? This month my former Change.org colleague Alanna Shaikh wrote a eulogy for the project.  Here’s a dose:

Americans wanted the OLPC. We fell in love with its tremendous promise and adorable shape. (note: I own an OLPC) We were the first market it conquered. OLPC launched a give one-get one promotion that let individuals pay $400 to donate one laptop and receive one for themselves. It was a huge success, except that OLPC wasn’t set up for that kind of customer order fulfillment. Laptops arrived far later than promised, and several thousand orders were simply lost.

Once the laptop finally started arriving in the developing world, its impact was minimal. We think. No one is doing much research on their impact on education; discussions are largely theoretical. This we do know: OLPC didn’t provide tech support for the machines, or training in how to incorporate them into education. Teachers didn’t understand how to use the laptops in their lessons; some resented them. Kids like the laptops, but they don’t actually seem to help them learn.

It’s time to call a spade a spade. OLPC was a failure.

But Alanna received serious pushback in the comments for her prognosis, with counter-arguments flowing in from Uruguay, Peru, and Cambodia.  And then, Negroponte himself chimed in:

The dream is not over. When OLPC started there were no low cost laptops. We created the category less than four years ago and it now represents almost one third of the world production of latops. I am not aware of too many technologies that have gone from “impossible” to such wide adoption.

The million laptops, our little green ones, that are in the hands of children, are currently in 19 languages and 31 countries. Another million are on their way. Not bad. But even better, these countries include Afghanistan, Haiti, Ethiopia, as well as places like the West Bank (and next month Gaza). Even better, eh?

I suggest you look more carefully at Uruguay, Peru and Rwanda. In the case of Uruguay, every child has one. That is pretty amazing. Peru is headed there. Rwanda too. In fact, we have moved our learning group (as of early June) to Kigali perminently, to be in the field and get the kind of feedback you claim we ignore.

Fair enough. And those stats about Uruguay are powerful indeed.  Negroponte did a get a little cheap, though. Admitting that the process of adoption has been tough, he writes that “Has it been harder than I expected? Yes. But do you know why? It is not due to what I had anticipated, things like corruption and logistics. It has been due to commercial interests and press, stories like yours.”

Ouch. There’s not a small amount of bitterness there. But we’ll let that go – maybe the OLPC project has legs after all.  I just hope it won’t be four more years until I write about it again.