The meek shall inherit the web

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: to eight students in each dorm room, phones are often the only practical way for students to access the web for their studies. And smart-phones are expensive, but operators often provide great deals on data tariffs to attract new customers.

Xuehui Zhao, a recent graduate of the Anyang Institute of Technology in Henan province, explains that a typical monthly package for five yuan ($0.73) includes 10 megabytes of data transfer-more than enough to allow her to spend a couple of hours each day surfing the web and instant-messaging with friends. It is also much cheaper than paying 200 yuan per month for a fixed-broadband connection.

As this young generation of sophisticated mobile-web users grows up, what sort of new services will they want? Many NGOs and local governments are trying things out. Several examples were discussed at a workshop in June organised by the W3C in São Paolo, Brazil. The government of the Brazilian state of Paraná, for instance, is using text messages and voice-menu systems to notify the unemployed about job opportunities and farmers about agricultural prices.

But the workshop also highlighted the limits of what such efforts can achieve. It quickly became apparent that more or less identical services are being developed from scratch repeatedly in different parts of the world. There is clearly room for more co-ordination of such efforts, which is exactly what the W3C has in mind.

Furthermore, many clever systems are being developed by NGOs with no apparent interest in setting up commercial services. As Mr Boyera points out, this raises the issue of sustainability. What happens when the NGO’s funding runs out? One conclusion from the workshop was that promoting social development through the mobile web will mean engaging with businesses. Regulators can also help by fostering cheap mobile access.

The developing world missed out on much of the excitement of the initial web revolution, the dotcom boom and Web 2.0, largely because it did not have an internet infrastructure. But developing countries may now be poised to leapfrog the industrialised world in the era of the mobile web.