We have wondered aloud about how Facebook will make money, especially from the majority of its users who are outside the US and who access it over mobile platforms. Apparently it made USD 150 million last quarter, the first in which broke out the numbers. The earnings report was the first time the company had broken out from its overall advertising revenue how much money it collects from mobile ads. The information helped to address a critical question that investors have had about how Facebook will respond to the world’s shift to mobile computing; 60 percent of all Facebook users log in from their phones. Although it is not a direct comparison, Google is poised to make far more money from mobile devices.
A new report, “Unlocking the Benefits of Cloud Computing for Emerging Economies—A Policy Overview” by Peter F. Cowhey and Michael Kleeman of the University of California San Diego, details how 60 percent of world server workloads to take place on cloud computers by 2014. It examines the critical benefits to lower and middle-income economies, in particular those of India, Mexico and South Africa, from international and domestic adoption of cloud computing. Among the key findings in the report are: The cloud enables developing world economies to be competitive with higher value added products as goods and services become more information and communications technology (ICT) intensive; The cloud bolsters South-South commerce, the fastest growing share of world trade investment; The cloud’s scalability boosts job creation by helping small to medium sized businesses reduce costs and investments; The cloud enables developing world countries’ governments to deliver core services more effectively and efficiently; and The cloud boosts network infrastructure investment in lower income economies. View the full report.
LIRNEasia has been vocal against the feudal doctrines of ITU and ETNO on dwarfing the Internet. The duo has staged a Twitter Storm on October 10. They have, predictably, failed to justify the command and control of Internet. While responding to LIRNEasia’s CEO Rohan Samarajiva, the ETNO chief Luigi Gambardella said, “We know that today Internet economic model is not sustainable” (Click on the thumbnail at left). Dennis Weller and Bill Woodcock have recently coauthored a new OECD report, “Internet Traffic Exchange: Market Developments and Policy challenges.
LIRNEasia was early in seeing mobile as the future. We had the benefit of the Teleuse@BOP surveys. We were seen as the main voice for the mobile future in ICT4D circles. We carried comments from people like Steve Jobs who saw it coming. Now the wave that we saw developing in our part of the world has reached the centers of ICT power.
Blogpost of LIRNEasia has evidently sensitized the media of Bangladesh on probing its absence in ITU’s latest ICT Development Index. It has prompted finger-pointing and passing the hot potato: According to the telecommunications ministry, Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) is responsible for sending in the information to the UN body. And as per a BTRC official, the data was sent to the UN body — but it did not meet the deadline. Such bureaucratic hide-and-seek has, however, failed to impress the industry: “Exclusion from the list would affect the promising outsourcing business of Bangladesh,” said Mahboob Zaman, a former president of Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services. He said the developed countries’ businesses consider their outsourcing destinations after getting the ICT standard or ranking of developing countries.
One more qualified bidder than number of slots is a prescription for a bidding frenzy. But then, something like this has been done before. In the UK they had one more slot than there were existing operators. The consequences of being the only 2G operator who failed to get a 3G license drove up the prices. That should do it in Bangladesh too, unless someone comes up with a clever solution.
India’s mobile penetration is merely 26 percent and China’s is just 43 percent, says “Unique subscriber penetration” data of GSMA. The mobile industry’s trade body has also revealed that only 45 percent of the world’s population have subscribed to mobile services. It says the number of mobile subscribers globally will be 3.2 billion by Q4 2012, growing to 4 billion within the next five years. Such unpleasant findings are the results of a primary research, undertaken by the GSMA’s Wireless Intelligence team over three years and across 39 developed and developing markets.
Our research has pointed to the importance of trading platforms: The study of Cellbazaar in Bangladesh as well as the work on agriculture in the last research cycle. It appears from this NYT report that the demand for trading (and payment) platforms is most vibrant in the mobile space. John J. Donahoe, eBay’s chief executive, attributed the company’s performance in part to an early bet that mobile phones would become a platform for commerce, with PayPal providing a lead in mobile payments. “We’re the largest mobile commerce and payments provider in the world,” Mr.
In 1992, I wrote parts of a report for the National Regulatory Research Institute in the US on privacy and competitive implications for transaction-generated information (a term that has been eclipsed by the less informative “big data” in recent times). We covered all utilities, including electricity. Burns,Robert; Samarajiva, Rohan & Mukherjee, Roopali (1992) Customer information: Privacy and competitive implications, NRRI 92-11 . Columbus OH: National Regulatory Research Institute. Now, 20 years later, the issue is hot, the subject of a BBC story: The EDPS report voices concern over the “potential intrusiveness” of smart meters, which it says can track what members of a household do in the privacy of their homes.
The quotation below is from an NYT article based on British Council research that shows intra-Asian collaboration in science is highly productive. Having studied research collaborations in the ICT policy and regulation field as were starting CPRsouth, we were waiting for such collaborations to emerge organically. Seven conferences have gone, and we have yet to see intra-Asian collaboration, though we are seeing Asia-Africa collaboration. This was catalyzed by an internship offered to Rohman, and Indonesian national studying in Sweden, by our sister organization, Research ICT Africa. The quotation below refers to research on aquaculture.
The ITU publishes an annual ranking of ICT development, with ICT access and use being given 40 percent of the weight each and a sub-component known as skills, made up of education indicators, given 20 percent. Of the SAARC countries, Afghanistan and Bangladesh are not covered. Of the six that are covered, Maldives and Sri Lanka hold on to their 72nd and 105th places, showing no improvement nor regression. Bhutan falls back one place to 118; India three places to 119; Pakistan two places to 127 and Nepal brings up the rear at 137th place (a regression of 3 places from 2010). It is not that their scores have not improved.
It was just two years ago that Bangladesh was elected to the Council of the International Telecommunication Union. One would think that Bangladesh would be treated with added respect as a result. However, it appears that it has been excluded from the ITU’s annual compilation of the ICT Development Index for 2012. It is not completely absent, being included in the comparisons of price baskets. But on the main index, it’s absent.
Behavioral economics has brought to the fore the power of the default. As big data makes it easier to understand people’s actual behaviors and guide their choices, the power of the default is beginning to be fought over. Interestingly, it’s Microsoft versus the rest. Next came an incensed open letter from the board of the Association of National Advertisers to Steve Ballmer, the C.E.
Your data are not your data. They are the digits of Life’s longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, And though they are with you yet they belong not to you. If Gibran were around today, would his magnificent poem look somewhat as above? I am not sure.
Something to think about. Earlier this month, Facebook announced that it had 1 billion active users. Of that, 81 percent were said to be outside the US and Canada. The top-five countries in ranked order at this time are US; Brazil, India, Indonesia, Mexico. Last year, there were lots of reports about Facebook building a server farm in Northern Sweden.
Thought-provoking piece, based on company-survey data, about how place is becoming irrelevant to work. BTW, the tax principle that Bangladesh is praised for was implemented in Sri Lanka maybe five years ago. The online work is already changing how some governments think about labor. Last May the government of Bangladesh decided to classify online work as export-related commercial income, free of taxes, instead of as a taxed offshore remittance. The idea, Mr.