Remember when the Interent was new? Well I don’t remember when it was really new but I go back to about 1994 (when I was 12). Back then I used to do a lot of demonstrations of the Internet and talking about why you should care about it. I found the sure fire way to get people to care was to start by asking what else they cared about and then make a connection.

Reports indicate at least 95 percent of the US cares about the Internet or broadband now – but I think the tougher sale is why should we care about broadband policy. Well the Benton Foundation has come up with a tool to help both make the case to those who might care yet – and help those of us who already care to keep up on what’s happening with the National Broadband Plan.

The tool works like an electronic index to the National Broadband Plan, highlighting topics of potential interest and providing the broadband context and progress for those topics. For example, there is a section on Children and Families. In that section Benton has listed the 21 recommendations that impact the state of Children and Families. Each recommendation includes a concise and reader-friendly abstract of the recommendation and registered users have the ability to post comments. The comments feature should open the door to dialog among experts, practitioners and the public, which I think makes the tool more interesting for those of us predisposed to care about broadband policy.