WWW2007: Charles McCathie Nevile on “Mobile Web to Bridge the Digital Divide”

Note: These are rough notes from the WWW2007 conference.

There is one Web.  There is one collection of stuff.  There are lots of ways to use it.

In India, there are 35 million desktop connections and 150 million mobile phones.  That is growing at 5 million a month.  In Nigeria, the best selling Nokia phone is the N70.  Half the market is Voice+SMS.

SMS is short, simple, and cheap.  Its on any phone.  There are already micropayments.   There is no multimedia.

With the Web, there is a freedom of services and a freedom of devices.  It’s simple to set up.

Music downloading on mobile phones is BIG in Africa.  Your mobile phone becomes everything.

Opera Mini puts the Web on just about every other phone.  It compresses the stuff it downloads.  It makes it fast and cheaper.  Flat rates are critical and compressions is critical.

There is still a digital divide.  Mobile is helping as it becomes the real Web.