While rummaging about the net researching mobile phones, and especially signs in the stars about the mobile-Internet convergence that I talked about earlier, I came across this article. A few selected quotes from the Mercury News:
Think India’s tech sector is just about software? Think again. A new tech boom is under way — one that could transform India into a hardware center with its own semiconductor industry.
…Driving that growth will be cell phones, which are more prevalent than PCs in India. That in turn is creating an ecosystem of opportunities.
…The mobile phone is becoming the society-changing force that the PC was in the United States. It’s far more affordable than a computer and provides instant and constant communication links for millions of Indians, many of whom do not own desktops or even have land-line phones.
Also found this talking about the already-existing mobile phone based services that work (or do not) in bridging mobile and net technologies. From iLeher:
I was actually amazed to find out that you can do so much even without having data connectivity - just by using simple SMS. My sense is that still none of these have really gained a lot of traction among the masses, but they are taking a step in the right direction and hopefully someone will figure out the magic formula of making the users addicted to their service on mobile.
I’m of course not interested here in the “addictive services” for mobile phones whathever they are. Rather, interested in the speculation whether mobile-Internet convergence could spill over into media production in places where laptops are too expensive and broaband connections suck. In other words, in looking at the mobile NOT as a supplement service but rather as a way to say fuck off entirely to the concept of a computer. Could a media distribution network along the lines of YouTube (or ApnaTube, Meravideo, Infeedia) be organised without the computer by using only mobile phone video, pictures, multimedia messages etc. that would be distributed via a centralized Internet-based server? What about rural blogs that would do the same with the mobile phone as the only interface to the blogosphere? Would this be possible? Will it happen?
This is where astrology becomes fun …
Some more quotes, this is from one of the editors of Fortune,
“The cell phone may not yet seem a very effective window to the world’s information. But as the internet gets more and more customized for the cell phone, we will see an explosion of new uses for this small but immensely powerful device.
One good example of what’s possible is a little company in Bangladesh called CellBazaar. Closely related to GrameenPhone, the largest mobile phone company in the country, CellBazaar enables the users of cell phones to conduct business on an eBay-like market.
Sellers list products or services in a database, and buyers search this database using only SMS text. CellBazaar doesn’t actually conduct transactions, it just makes a connection between the parties, who meet in person to conduct the deal.
This company illustrates several key points about the use of cell phones in developing countries. First, well over 50 percent of cell phone usage there is for business use, mostly very small businesses.
Even in the slums of Mumbai, today a large percentage of residents have a mobile phone, which they use to bring more efficiency to the micro-businesses that occupy almost every home.
Cell phones speed the pace of economic activity and enable far more people to participate actively in the economy. Much of this activity is driven not by voice caling but by SMS - short text messages. ”
The article can be found here:
http://money.cnn.com/2006/12/20/magazines/fortune/kirkpatrick_UN_speech.fortune/index.htm
A lot of writing exists on the “mobile revolution” in India as everybody wants to believe in the abundant blingbling that can be made in small town and rural areas. These news articles are of course a part of this fantasy.
Likewise, a lot of Academic work has been done on mobile phones and their significance, especially in the US and Europe.
I am more interested, however, in the convergence of web 2.0 social software platforms and mobile phones: emerging trends where the computer would be replaced by a cheaper (and smaller) interface such as the phone in sharing and creating content such as video and images etc. Ubiqutuos mobile computing etc.
So I was sitting in Bombay recently and had a chat with a friend of mine about how people in the city don’t meet that many people socially. Much on the interaction happens through the cell phone - a person is determined by the extent of his mobile phone network. We speculated that perhaps Bombay is, in fact, a giant social software incarnate. People are links to each other but perhaps never meet physically such as with myspace. You see how much people spend their time on the mobile phone to contacts of various hierarchies of importance and status.
This got me interested how the communication topology of the city decided to a large degree today by mobile connections. Don’t know why … a feeling. Maybe partially the fact that a big portion of my PhD deals with how SMS messages during the tsunami became “news” via multiple steps of digital intermediation. And that was two years ago … things have changed shitloads since then …
I believe that some of the services that do not required much interaction and screen real estate like mobile ticketing, mobile payment should take off really soon and hit the mainstream much sooner in Indian markets independent of the same services offered on the Internet.
Madhur
I agree. Screen size will always set limitations. But to which degree will such “screen real estate” evolve as such new services become available is another interesting question to astrologize. At least, for us involved in the experimental side of new media technologies (both practically and theoretically) it is this relationship between form and content where mobile technology is at its most fascinating and challenging. Will we see portable plug-in screens for content as we have head phones? TV bluetooth / wifi mixed with mobile phones? How will application interfaces have to adapt as they become more popular with mobile phones… etc, etc.
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