This document discusses the rise of mobile internet access globally, particularly in Africa and Asia. It notes that mobile phone subscriptions now exceed internet users in many parts of the world. The document then outlines some of the key differences between mobile and traditional web access, including varying screen sizes and mobile-optimized browsers. It argues that libraries risk losing users to search engines like Google if they do not adapt their online content and services for mobile devices.

1. Is there a mobile challenge for the libraries? Mobile web 2.0 and the future of mobile access to content EAHIL 11th European Conference of Medical and Health Libraries, Helsinki, Finland 15.30-15.50 Friday 27 2008 Lars Iselid

2. Mobile and internet users in Africa 50 million Internet users exist in Africa, but only one out of 20 Africans is online. In 2007, Africa added no less than 65 million new mobile subscribers. In early 2008, there were over a quarter billion mobile subscribers. Mobile penetration has risen from just one in fifty people in 2000 to close to a third of the population today. Source: African Telecommunication/ICT Indicators 2008, International Telecommunication Union

3. Mobile subscribers in Africa 2002-2007

4. Mobile users in Asia 820 million mobile subscribers in 2005. Estimated 59 million were 3G mobile subscribers in 2005. Forecasts says: that the total number of mobile subscribers in the region will reach 1.75 billion by 2010. Approximately one in five mobile subscribers in the region will therefore have access to a 3G network 2010. Source: Business Monitor International

5. Mobile phone subscriptions in Europe Source: Eurostat

6. Mobile web access in Britain 2007 17 millions people accessed the Internet on their phone in December. This equates to 23% of mobile users in UK Source: Mobile Data Association (themda.org)

7. Statistics from Swedish mobile phone market 3,3 millions mobile devices sold during 2007 40% of sold devices were 3G phones and 25% of 3G phones has support for mobile broadband More than 10% were a Smarthphone Source: MobilTeleBranschen: mtb.se

8. Mobile web is… … the web accessed via mobile devices like mobile phones, PDAs and other mobile devices. WLAN PDA or smartphone= PDA/mobil with phone/wireless Connection (GPRS, 3G, WLAN) Mobile phone and PDA witout internet

9. Mobile devices

10. Different screen resolutions

11. Mobile browser war – IE, Opera Mobile, Opera Mini, Nokia Web Browser S60

12. Firefox mobile to come? At Mozilla Labs: labs.mozilla.com/2008/06/firefox-mobile-concept-video/

13. Squace - Discovery-finding tool and/or webbrowser? A swedish internet-startup

14. … next big Internet phenomenon. "Mobile phones are cheaper than PCs, there are three times more of them, growing at twice the speed, and they increasingly have Internet access. What is more, the World Bank estimates that more than two-thirds of the world's population lives within rang of a mobile phone network. Mobile is going to be the next big Internet Phenomenon ”. “ Let more of the world access the internet” by Google’s Eric Schmidt in Financial Times May 21 2006

15. Mobile is internet "From now on, when we say Internet, we mean mobile handset. This is a trend nobody will stop." Masayoshi Son, Softbank, at Mobile World Congress 2008 in Barcelona

16. Daniel K. Appelquist, Vodaphone "Mobile 2.0 is not ’the Future.’ It is services that already exist all around us . These services are maturing at an amazing rate and what they are doing is effectively knitting together Web 2.0 with the mobile platform to create something new: a new class of services that leverage mobility but are as easy to use and ubiquitous as the Web is today”.

17. Mobile web 2.0 examples, according to Daniel K. Appelquist SMS -> IM, mobile blogging MMS -> Media sharing Operator Portals -> Mobile Web and search Operator chooses -> User chooses Premium SMS billing -> Mobile stored value Accounts Java Games -> Connected Applications (e.g. photo sharing, blogging) Presence & Push-To-Talk -> VOIP applications WAP sites -> Web sites that adapt for mobile browsers WAP push -> RSS readers Wallpaper -> Idle screen applications Location services -> Google maps application Content consumption -> Content creation (e.g. mobile blogging)

18. Seven principles of Mobile web 2.0 - by Ajit Jaokar och Tony Fish Mobile content and the changing balance of power (The power of user generated content) I am not a number, I am a tag (The impact on the telecoms industry's management of numbers) Multilingual mobile access (Everyone, Everywhere with a phone running .. ) Mobile web 2.0 and Digital convergence (Mobile web 2.0 is a driver to digital convergence) The disruptive power of Ajax and mobile widgets Location based services and Mobile web 2.0 (LBS has never quite taken off. Will mobile web 2.0 help?) Mobile search : Much more than Google on your mobile phone .

19. Which OS for mobiles?

20. ” Every little thing that Google does is magic…” Android is a new open source operative system and software platform for mobile phones, launched 5 Nov 2007 by Open Handset Alliance (Google, HTC, Intel, Motorola, Samsung among others)

21. ” We are sending out a SMS…” ”… a message in your pocket” Yes, mobile environment, but not mobile web environment

22. Into to the mobile web environment now! Adjust the library web pages to the mobile web XHTML MP (mobile profile) with wap css 2.0 as style sheet WML is dead Promote mobile content and web services, not just mobile services e-books, databases, alerts etc. Let the user’s try it out!!

23. It’s like going back at least 10 years in the history of the web User’s want flat rate Not pay-per-MB User’s want faster connections Remember the time with slow modems? User’s want faster web pages time is not just money, it’s about patience User’s want ”richer” web pages Not just displaying 5% of the website content and services existing via the regular Web

24. 10 years ago Altavista ran the show On the mobile web Google doesn’t run the show… … yet!

25. The iPhone Hystery

26. The foldable phone - Readius Merging e-reader with mobile phone 5” display, 16 greyscales, 115g, ARM11 400Mhz, 8GB, 3G HSDPA, 115 x 57 x 21 mm

27. If the libraries don’t jump on the bandwagon? We’ve lost many of our users to googlewikipedia-infopandemia. With the still unmature mobile web we got the chance to get some of them back!!

28. And remember… “ Everything of importance has been said before by somebody who did not discover it” . Alfred North Whitehead English mathematician & philosopher (1861 - 1947)

29. And remember again… “ The mobile web experience will be something else than the regular web of today, but unfortunately I haven’t discovered it yet” . Lars Iselid Swedish librarian (1968 - ?)