Comments on: Debates on the Mobile Web at MobileActive ’08

By: SXSW: Mobile Web in Emerging Markets | White African

SXSW: Mobile Web in Emerging Markets | White African — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 17:11:59 +0000

[...] ability to read/write to that database of information – which is the web. (Excellent! This is what I’ve been thinking for a while) This was best summed up by this [...]

By: Profile: M-Pesa « TechMASAI

Profile: M-Pesa « TechMASAI — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 18:58:11 +0000

[...] you watch the video you will start to see why there is so much attention on mobile technology for social [...]

By: Tino

Tino — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 18:31:27 +0000

The point is valid, the iPhone is the only application that can seriously impress any MacBook user away to a mobile device for Web usage.

BUT — there are millions of people who haven’t used a laptop or even a desktop computer who are perfectly impressed with what they get on a small Nokia 6230 screen here across Africa. Usability sucks if you compare it to what most of us use on an hourly basis – but it means the universe to people who have no other means to get connected to the Internet. It’s really just a getting-used-to question.

(BTW I’m honored to be featured in the above picture ^^)

By: Soyapi

Soyapi — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 15:25:30 +0000

I wasn’t actively “there” but I’m sure the early versions of desktops weren’t really as useful at the mainframes back then. Don’t even talk of being standardised.

As mobile phones get more powerful while more laptops get minified (e,g. netbooks, OLPC) and bandwidth becomes cheaper and faster the difference between desktops and mobile phones will get very blurred.

And BTW, expensive phones don’t remain expensive forever. After being used and old-fashioned, you can buy them cheap too! It was difficult to imagine how cheap camera-phones could be just a couple of years ago.

But that’s an interesting analogy there, Rabble.

By: Will the “Mobile Web” be a reality in Africa? « global pICTure

Will the “Mobile Web” be a reality in Africa? « global pICTure — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 07:48:23 +0000

[...] to the Internet through mobile devices, and further differentiated by browser access and widgets. Some people say that any kind of database access is considered “web access”, so then even SMS access [...]

By: John Powers

John Powers — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 04:19:03 +0000

I am so not a techie! But I was thinking about how Kiva harnessed the mobile phone for their field records. Here's a blog post from over two years ago about MMS. You can also go onto subsequent posts, seems like they got it working. That research ended, so I don't know whether issues emerged that make the whole system impractical or not. But it seems to me an example of the sort of position you're arguing.

By: JKE

JKE — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 17:51:08 +0000

Wow, good points. How come this is the first time I heard of FireEagle? Nice!

Yeah well the iPhone. Remember back in 1998 when everyone was looking for “the killer app” to push WAP forward? My biggest issue with the current state is the interface – even on a state-of-the-art S60 Nokia (with lots of other features) this isn’t solved that well (=> iPhone).

What about netbooks, btw? What will happen if netbooks with internal GSM modems enter the market and start substituting mobile phones as the only or most common gateway?

And the other question i have: What exactly is mobile web? The one you access from a mobile phone – or even the usual web content you access from another mobile device?
Am asking because maybe it’s not only the devices and their software, but also about original content that was designed for both usage patterns (desktop & mobile device).