While the report shows that the usage of the mobile web in June 2010 was slightly lower than that in May2010, the growth between June 2009 and June 2010 has been phenomenal. The slight dip between May 2010 and June 2010 is due to certain technical and political issues which are likely to be sorted out shortly.

The number of Opera Mini users between June 2009 and June 2010 worldwide has grown by 124% to 59.4 million. The number of page views in June 2010 was 27.3 billion which is 161.8% more than in June 2009. The amount of data generated in this period has also grown by 147.1%.

The report, which has focused especially on mobile Web usage in Africa, shows that the top 12 countries for mobile web usage in that continent are South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Egypt, Ghana, Sudan, Libya, Tanzania, Ivory Coast, Namibia, Mozambique and Mauritius.

In these countries, the number of page views has gone up by 182%, unique users have increased by 124% and data transfer has gone up by 160% between June 2009 and June 2010.

While sites like Facebook, YouTube and Google are all very popular, Facebook is the leader in 6 of these countries, while Google is at the top in the other 6 countries.

Nokia is the most popularly used handset brand and is followed by others like Samsung Sony Ericsson and LG.

The new service can be accessed at:

0.facebook.com/

While the service is similar to Facebook mobile in most respects, it will not include photos on the site. Photographs will be just one click away, but users will be charged for accessing them at the regular data rates.

Other than viewing pictures, users will be able to carry on most of the regular activities they do on Facebook such as updating their status, viewing news feeds, posting comments and writing on a friend’s wall etc.

0.facebook.com has been created with the aim of overcoming two of the major obstacles of using social networks through mobile handsets: the speed (or lack) of using social sites on a mobile device and the cost of accessing such media-rich services on uncapped mobile data plans.

Facebook has partnered with mobile operators to deliver this service. Users will not pay any data charges to access this service. They will only be charged the regular data tariffs if they wish to view a photo or if they wish to move away from 0.facebook to browse another site. In both cases, they will receive a notification informing them that they will be charged for doing so.

Initially, 0.facebook will be available only in 45 developing countries and territories in collaboration with over 50 mobile operators. The service will be introduced in a few more places shortly.

Facebook already has over 100 million active mobile users with over 200 mobile operators spread across 80 countries. With this move they are sure to expand their reach even further.

This service will be available in 21 countries and will let users perform basic banking operations such as money transfers, through their mobile phones.

MTN money Transfer, which has just been launched in Uganda, is the first such service there. Initially the service will be very simple, but later on it may be upgraded depending on the market needs.

Head of MTN’s mobile money development, Dare Okoudjou, said, “a lot of people do not have formal access and financial services, whereas they do have a mobile telephone or are living with someone who does have access to a mobile handset.”

MTN has signed a $9.7 million deal with South African mobile payment firm Fundamo, to set up these services. This service will enable people to move real money between the mobile accounts through their handsets. Users who enroll for the service will have an account created for them, through which they can carry out basic financial transactions. The account will be set up for free, but each transaction will be charged at a nominal rate.

Four other similar schemes have already been launched elsewhere in Africa, one of which is backed by The Bill And Melinda Gates Foundation. They are investing $12.5 million in this service.

In February 2009, Monitise set up a service with E-Fulusi Africa to set up a mobile banking system in East Africa.

Standard Chartered and Citibank are also setting up a service called Zap, which will be accessible to more than a 100 million Africans.

Earlier this month, Mi-Pay and Isys started a scheme in Sudan, which will be a sort of testing ground for person to person banking, in that region and may be extended to 22 nations in Africa and the Middle East.

The first such scheme M-Pesa system Kenya is making banks compete with mobile operators, and has garnered over 4 million subscribers since its inception in March 2007.

The mobile operators certainly expect to lure more customers to themselves, through such schemes.

O3b stands for the ‘Other 3 Billion’ who do not live in Western society and do not enjoy the wonders of mobile and Internet technology. The O3bnetwork will be able to provide Internet connectivity to developing nations in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East at high speed and low costs.

In its present form, the Internet is mainly accessible in developed nations thanks to an extensive network of submarine fiber optic cables, which work out to be very cost-effective once they are laid. In place where these fiber optic cables are unavailable, there are geo-synchronous satellites that can be used to connect to the Internet, but they provide very slow connectivity and are also very expensive, thus making Internet access unaffordable for most people in developing countries.

The new O3b system will provide fiber-like Internet services, by means of several medium-orbit satellites. In its initial phase, O3b will have a constellation of 16 satellites, providing low latency links ranging from 1Mbps to 10Gbps. These satellites will make it possible to access the Internet at high speeds with low latency, thus making it possible to quickly disseminate information even to the remotest of places such as the interiors of Africa, at reasonably low rates.

O3b satellites will be positioned around the earth, at almost one-third the distance of the geo-synchronous satellites, thus improving the connectivity and transmission times.

Backers Google, Liberty Global and HSBC have collectively contributed U.S. $60 million to O3b Networks. It is estimated that the O3b satellites will be functional by the end of 2010, making Internet access faster, cheaper and easier. This in turn will encourage upcoming market operators and internet service providers to improve the overall internet experience. For details please visit:

http://www.o3bnetworks.com/

Computers are not commonly available in the African continent. Even in South Africa, which is relatively better off than most African countries, only 22% of mobile phone users have computers. Stafford Masie from Google’s local office in Nairobi said in a media briefing that a lot of locals who had worked abroad for Google had “come home” to launch the local branch. Most of these employees are sales personnel and will try to make advertisers divert some of their funds from TV and radio ads to online ads.

Google is looking to hire as many locals as possible to ensure the success of this venture. According to reports on AllAfrica, they also intend to start offices in Ghana, Tanzania, Nigeria etc. When Google was first launched in the late 1990′s their avowed aim was to organize all the information in the world and make it universally available. Since only about 20% of all the information is online as of now, it is imperative that this information be made available to everybody.

According to Douglas Merrill, V.P. Engineering at Google information accessibility in Africa will have to be acheived through mobile phones. Since most of the searches done in Africa will be through mobile phones, Google intends to find new and better ways to conduct these searches. Methods such as voice entry or SMS entry of keywords are being looked into. They also want people to be able to study maps and receive directions via SMS. All of this will require a lot of hard work and efforts in the near future.

The services in Africa will initially be available in Afrikaans, Sesotho, Zulu and Xhosa; they will contain information about South African culture, tourism, traditional medicine etc. Google also hope to be able to help educate the local people by bringing in information and creating awareness about different parts of the world.