Can the digital economy help poor and isolated communities?

“The question being asked is…whether the digital economy can be a catalyst to bring the poor in from the economic cold. At first glance, the notion seems silly. After all, only 6% of the world has ever logged on to the Internet; perhaps half has never used a phone. And it’s not obvious why, given a chance, that a family making $5 a day would use its limited income to do either. But step back and think about it. The Internet and the phone are simply networks that amplify the gossip by the village well. All they do, fundamentally, is to communicate information — and information is a powerful source of economic leverage. Think of a villager in a remote area whose only way of knowing what’s going on at the nearest market is by taking the day off and walking there. In such a place, middlemen can set prices that farmers and fishermen cannot afford to challenge. But if producers can pick up a phone and call wholesalers and retailers, they can make better deals. By breaching the isolation of the very poor, information and communications technologies can remove one of the biggest (yet least visible) barriers to their emergence.”
–Cait Murphy, “The Hunt for Globalization That Works”, Fortune, 10/28/02