The online universe, in contrast, taking the set-asides and signposts that demarcate the nonprofit sector in the real world, seems scarcely to distinguish between non-profit and noncommercial. The two main entry points for web-based travels, portals such as aol and the Microsoft network, and such search sites as google and yahoo, are completely agnostic on this score (when they aren't favoring affiliated and sponsored programming, that is). Nor has the nonprofit sector itself (with the partial exceptions of scattered community-based networks and the 'branded' empires of PBS, NPR, the smithsonian, etc) succeeded in establishing the online on-ramps that fully honor the high standards, deep resources, and long traditions on nonprofit culture. The 501(c)(3) label has real meaning in the analog world, in short conferring not only tax-exempt status, but a certain 'seal of approval' as well. We have yet to find a way to map these values into the virtual world, where style often triumphs over substance and where marketing and cross-promotion often exert the same tyranny-of-the-majority pressure on new media that Nielsen ratings and box-office receipts exert on the old.
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