Nokia’s MeraNokia (Majha Nokia in Marathi) is actually a Nokia Life Tools (NLT) application coded into the 2300 and 2323 handsets being used in the pilot. Farmers and villagers pay around Rs 2 per day, every 10 days, for the latest on crop pricing, weather, farming tips, among other things. All this is freely available on the net for those with PCs and Internet access. For the farmers, the mobile is the PC. “Across India, the mobile revolution is passé by now and is just a matter of tracking the millions. (By the time you will be reading this, the number of mobile subscribers in India will have crossed 400 million, making it the world’s second-largest market.) But this very growth has put the fear of commoditisation into the hearts of the players. They need a differentiator. That differentiator is services.” Read full story (via Open Gardens)

The Financial Times has published a special report on connectivity, analysing the implications of a connected planet. My preferred pieces: Skills: Business must learn from the new tribe So-called ‘digital natives’ are bringing down the barriers to collaborative working, finds Jessica Twentyman (If you read one article only, this is the one.) Mobility: Flexibility is driven from the bottom up But organisations must ensure employees are not slaves to mobile devices, notes Stephen Pritchard Overcoming the fear of connectivity Some organisations, fearful of untoward consequences such as reputational damage, ban social networking websites. Others embrace them enthusiastically and try to persuade others to do likewise. Developing world: ‘Have-nots’ no closer to catching the ‘haves Cellphones are nearly ubiquitous but internet access is still very patchy, says Paul Taylor Case study: Text messages give shopkeepers the power to bulk buy Stroll through South Africa’s villages – as steeped in ancestral tradition as they are deprived of basic services – and you will come across the convenience store, writes Tom Burgis. Opinion: IT makes poverty a ‘curable affliction’ Olav Kjorven of the UNDP argues that innovative programmes in developing nations have helped people increase their choices and opportunities Donor programmes: Sponsors can now view benefits online Non-governmental organisations and government bodies can see exactly how their money is being spent, writes Danny Bradbury Developed world: Those with no access miss out on opportunities Jessica Twentyman examines the evidence that digital exclusion and social disadvantage go hand in hand Connecting the world: Ubiquity will be a hard state to reach Network access for all requires money but there are also significant technical hurdles, writes Stephen Pritchard

(Note that without subscription you can read only 10 FT articles a month. But you can double or triple that by installing more than one browser.)

Global Post reports on how millions in Ghana are entering the banking system through mobile phone system. “Nobody stands to benefit quite like Africa’s increasingly powerful telecom companies, the conglomerates who built this continent’s cellular towers and enable its calls. “These guys are going to be more powerful than Google, more powerful than Microsoft, within the locality in which they operate,” Amankwah said. “Already, telecoms move more money than the banks. And they have control over the channels — it’s their sim card. You’re using their network.” Read full story

The blog series on New Media Practices in International Contexts, which I announced in January, is now complete. It covers the unique characteristics of digital media user behaviours in very different socio-cultural contexts of China, Korea, India, Brazil, Japan and Ghana, with a particular interest in the intersection of youth, new media and learning.
The authors, a group of people around Mimi Ito, believe that examining new media practices from an international (and, in some cases, transnational) perspective will enhance their current efforts to theorise youth, new media and learning, a wider MacArthur Foundation Digital Media and Learning Initiative. China (by Cara Wallis): introduction - mobile phones - gaming - internet - new media production - conclusion Korea (by HyeRyoung Ok): introduction - internet - gaming - mobile phones - new media production - conclusion India (by Anke Schwittay): introduction - mobile phones - gaming - internet - new media production - conclusion Brazil (by Heather Horst): introduction - internet - new media production - games - mobile phones - conclusion Japan (by Mimi Ito and Daisuke Okabe): introduction - internet - mobile phones - new media production - gaming - conclusion Ghana (by Araba Sey): introduction - mobile phones - internet - new media production - gaming - conclusion Each case study focuses upon the telecommunications landscape, internet and mobile phone practices, gaming, and new media production, and provides a unique perspective on the ways in which infrastructure, institutions and culture (among other factors) shape contemporary new media practices.

Last week, the W3C Mobile Web Initiative organised a workshop on the “Africa Perspective on the Role of Mobile Technologies in Fostering Social Development” in Maputo, Mozambique. The workshop set out to understand the specific challenges of using mobile phones and Web technologies to deliver services to underprivileged populations of developing countries, and to capture the specificities of the African context. “There are today more than half of the population living with less than 3$ a day, and lacking all kind of services (health, education, government…). The incredible growth of the mobile penetration rate last few years is providing a new hope. The potential of simple ICT services on mobiles to improve people’s income has indeed been largely demonstrated. The aim of this workshop is to explore how to leverage these success stories and create an enabling environment that would drive the appearance of numerous services all over the Developing World.” There were sessions on m-health, technology, mobile activism, enabling environments, m-govenment, m-banking and agriculture. Presentations and papers are now available online (though some presentations are very concise). Here is a short selection: Technology

New paths: exploring mobile-only internet use in South Africa (slides) - Jonathan Donner (Microsoft), Shikoh Gitau (UCT) Freedom Fone: Mobile information service for social development, Brenda Burrell (Kubatana.net)

Enabling Environment

Need for richer features in addition to affordability in entry mobile phone devices (slides) - Jussi Impio & all (Nokia) Integrating mobile data services into an existing information ecology (slides) - Andrew Dearden Making a case for spoken Web as the mobile Web for developing countries - Arun Kumar (IBM)

M-Banking

Mobile phone banking: Usage experiences in Kenya - Adrian D Kamotho Njenga

A Taste of Virtual Currency: Air4Cash and Cash4Air - Ali Ndiwalana, Oliver Popov

Rich Ling is a sociologist at the Telenor research institute and a visiting professor at the IT University of Copenhagen, who is particularly interested in understanding the social implications of mobile telephony. He just posted a short paper on the rise of mobile divides, that discusses the differences between the power users in advanced countries that use a lot of IP stuff, the user in the third world and the sort of soccer mom/dad user that is somewhere in the middle. A lot of attention goes to the first group but the real base of use is often among the other two. “[The advanced and technically sophisticated super user] is a legitimate object of study. However, it is very important to note that this type of user is a relatively small portion of the total user base. It seems to be very exciting to focus design and development work around this type of person. This is, however, a fallacy. This type of user is very atypical and, as we will see below, does not represent the broader form of mobile use.” Download paper (via Jody Ranck)