by HASH - Title:
iafriq.com – Video: Dunia Media
THE MOBILE WEB from Duniamedia
The
mobile web revolution has already spread around the world. The phase of it that
we live in is where we see the internet hitting critical mass based on the
availability of web connectivity on mobile devices. Data is widely available,
and the costs continue to decrease at an alarming rate. We’re seeing the
disruption this is causing already, from businesses to consumers, and within
the political structures of entire countries.
THE MOBILE WEB from Duniamedia
Interestingly
enough, this video showcases iCow and M-Farm, both
providing agricultural data to farmers, not in a browser, but as text or voice
messages. One could think the title to be a tad misleading, as the “mobile web”
term is largely applied to web interaction on a browser on a phone.
What I
like about this take though is this; the internet allows for a paradigm that
doesn’t care what device you have, whether PC or phone, as long as you have a
database and a channel you’re in the game. As long as the device has some type
of text or voice communication it is suddenly a read/write platform.
What
we’re seeing in applications coming from Africa is a way to stretch the
use-case of “old” messaging technology like SMS, USSD or voice into new ways of
data transfer that challenge Western conceptions of what the internet is.
