About one in seven people in the world use Facebook. Additionally, about four billion people lack internet access. Today, Facebook (along tech giants Samsung, Nokia, Qualcomm and Ericsson to name a few) plans on announcing a new plan to bring internet to those who don't have it. This is all part of Mark Zuckerberg's master plan to outplay Google in their play to become Skynet. Of course, Google already has Project Loon, which will beam internet access down to Earth from balloons 11 miles in the sky. If that isn't Skynet, I don't know what is.
So enter Internet.org, the Zuckerberg led initiative set at bringing the internet to the world through mobile phone services. From improving phone batteries and networks, to simplifying applications, the coalition hopes to not only position Zuckerberg as an industry leader, but Facebook as some sort of angelic internet provider. I've made it clear in the past that I am less than trusting of the hoodie wearing mogul, but this actually seems like a moderately good idea.
"The Internet is such an important thing for driving humanity forward, but it’s not going to build itself," Zuckerberg said in a recent interview. "Ultimately, this has to make business sense on some time frame that people can get behind." That is, for all the humanitarian sounding goals here, the real goal is profit. There is a large untapped market out there, walking around without Facebook on their mobile devices, because they don't have mobile devices.
In this situation, Facebook has no other option than to work with mobile carriers and tech companies around the world. Actually, while Facebook might appear to be leading the initiative, they are nothing more than an application. It's nice that Zuckerberg is thinking so worldly, but the real players in bringing the mobile internet to the world are the mobile carriers. They just have to figure out how to cell phones in the hands of poor countries around the world, that barely have food much less cell phone towers.
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via Technology articles at Technorati http://feeds09.technorati.com/~r/tr-technology/~3/WdBK7K0V4aw/