Opera Mini

http://imgur.com/PZwCF

If you look carefully, bulk of the developing and the underdeveloped countries utilize the mobile web to access social networking sites. US (and some other developed economies) are lower down the scale.

Interestingly, the data transferred per user is a pathetic 7 MB (averaged over the month perhaps?) which means that operators are still being generous with their limits. However,  this is a crude approximation. For once, we have a clear proof that mobile internet is definitely a part of their value added services kitty but is NOT the revenue driver for them. They are offering it because there is no alternative.

This also explains their aggressive stance to get the 3G spectrum; primarily to add more voice customers than to offer data services.

If you look at the snapshot of the popular phones, Nokia is still leading the pack but majority of them are NOT smartphones. These java based handsets are pathetic in terms of functionality and at best useful for “checking the status updates” on Facebook.

A surprise entry is that of “Micromax” handset; they have capitalized on aggressive marketing and low price entry point.

Unfortunately, this does not portend good for the broadband initiatives. A cursory glance at the top sites (Google leads the pack) is only indicative. Google has benefited from being the default search engine on the browser and hence the port of call for any search. I barely use my handset for GPRS (or EDGE) for web surfing because smartphones (and their form factor) is basically useless to transact anything useful. For me, the only reason to invest is for email.

Nevertheless, this report can again be questioned in terms of “growth of users”. It is not clear about how the methodology has been arrived at and what has constituted the “growth in real terms”. However, one thing is clear. Most of the web sites focused on Indian content don’t have mobile strategies to counter the growth in the user base. Pathetic.

Indeed, with majority of the young adults unable to read/write or even engage in meaningful conversations on Indian polity, this “dumbification” was expected.

Facebook, although shows some presence (in terms of mobile access), mobile broadband is still “not hot” in US of A. There could be myriad factors but then Opera’s state of web access is best a “snapshot” of the handsets and it’s deal with the OEM‘s to bundle the product.

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• New mobile Web Google Maps highlights sorry state of native iOS app (arstechnica.com)
• Small world on small screens (opera.com)
• Google Maps For Mobile Updates With More Features (techie-buzz.com)
• Half of India uses Internet only through Mobile [Infographic] (trak.in)
• Mobile Web Content in East Africa [Report] (whiteafrican.com)
• Mobile Web in India grows 308% – Micromax one of the most popular mobiles to access Internet (trak.in)
• Opera to supply its mobile browser solution to Spreadtrum (opera.com)
• Book Review: Professional Mobile Web Development (books.slashdot.org)
• Web App Masters: Native or Web-Based Mobile Apps? (lukew.com)
• Maxis customers to surf the Internet up to six times faster with the Maxis-Opera Mini browser (opera.com)
• Opera Mini now sports Indian content by default! (trak.in)
• More Features in Google Maps for Mobile Browsers (mt-soft.com.ar)
• Google revamps Google Maps browser edition for iOS and Android (mobile-ent.biz)
• Saatchi mobile marketer: Mobile web is better value than apps (briefingmedia.wordpress.com)
• State of the Mobile Web (francescofederico.net)
• Why I’m Not Excited About Mobile Applications (samirbalwani.com)
• 58% Of Mobile Web Users Get Their Content Fix Through Browsers: Jumptap (techcrunch.com)
• Mobiltel joins the Opera Mini adventure (opera.com)

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Image via Wikipedia

Although I cannot publish the site stats here, but surprisingly, I am still seeing Internet Explorer 6 in the stats. While Windows remains a dominant platform, most of them are using a mix of Firefox and Explorer. Unfortunately, I don’t get to see Opera and none of the stats suggest that mobile browsers are being used in any way. ( I wonder when would Internet Explorer die and wither away).

I was keen to implement some plug in for mobile browsers but gave it up because I was not able to test it extensively. In any case, I recommend Opera Mini alone; with it’s latest update it inherits the best of the mobile browser breed. Specifically it’s tap to zoom since I was never a fan of the mobile version.

Image via Wikipedia

Firefox rules on my desktop now (Opera’s extension system leaves a lot to be desired), still it is maturing at a rapid pace.

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• Opera Mail and Mini (broadbandblog.in)
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• Mobilism: Mobile Browser Panel (lukew.com)
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• Opera Mini reaches 100 million users in March (intomobile.com)
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Image via Wikipedia

Opera Mini has touched over 100 million users riding on exclusive deals with various operators. It should indeed be a moment of pride for them; but at the same time, earning undisclosed revenue from Google as the default search engine.

This news comes at the heels of launch of new Opera Mail (link to their mail blog) which gives away 1 GB of free email space and full IMAP access. As a long standing customer of Fastmail (full enhanced access), I can testify for the service as near perfect. In the past 4 years, it possibly had about less than an hour of a downtime. My Opera had been conceptualized as a community based effort and has undergone radical changes in the past few years. And it has become better over the past few years of usage; interestingly, Opera has the best sync among the browsers baked right in.

Indeed, it has been at the innovation curve and nothing really beats it’s mobile offering. As a testimony to it’s growing user base, even Youporn has a dedicated option for opera mini users

Opera has done the right thing to bet it’s money on mobile offering. While it’s desktop may not be a hot property (I no longer use it because of Firefox 4), I would be on it’s on long term growth in mobile and connected devices where it is poised for a massive leap in times to come. And yes, one of the most understated technologies from Opera- it’s widgets. As standalone “objects”, they are platform agnostic; i.e. they can run on ANY platform if coded for. Much like the RSS feeds though.

I am unlikely to see any improvements in it’s feed reader in the near future (or atleast the company has not communicated anything so far). If I were to take a decision, I would market the desktop browser as a “content discovery engine”. The RSS feeds be contextually linked in form of tags (incluuding the emails) based on the text of the email/feeds coming through.

Email is the next logical option; I wouldn’t be surprised to see a basic form of email delivery through the mobile browser in times to come or at least some form of email notifications. Fastmail has the infrastructure to scale up; but I think their servers are going to be different but with the same Cyrus backend and absolutely topnotch IMAP services.

Where next? Opera, being opera, can code browsers alone. M2 Mail client is the best cross platform client out there (I think after thunderbird), and there is some talk to replicate the same “format” on the web. Nevertheless, the minimalist outlay is going to work fine though.

Since, my enhanced fastmail option lets me choose aliases (multiple though), I am a proud owner of two different aliases with Operamail domain

Way to go Opera.

Polish up your desktop browser, more (since we need the best and nothing but the best), and I would be glad to come back to it again

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The beauty of the mobile browser is that it is cross platform. I have covered this browser (for mobiles) in earlier write ups too but I think the most significant advance is the pinch to zoom that has come in Opera Mini.

I am currently upgrading the app from Android Market; nevertheless, I suspect that financial agreement with Google stays. Of course, you could always sync with Opera Mobile (the buliker cousin minus the “pre-fetching” of content), but I prefer Mini because in India, the GPRS sucks. I think Opera has a lot to gain with HTML 5 specifications. This would eliminate Flash completely and possibly deliver the videos in real time reducing the overheads in terms of infrastructure.

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Here’s the vision:

Hope you enjoy it.

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If for anything, I remain obessed about Opera. True, that their desktop product is sucking up in a big way (with the random crashes and unfixed bug reports), but there is imminent launch of Opera Mini 6 (with it’s app store baked in).

It’s good to be excited about a software that makes it easy for Internet access. We are still to see the way opera mini on it’s various platforms, be disruptive.

Of course, there if Firefox for mobile; but we’d let it wait. Mozilla needs a lot of work to make it happen. I am still waiting for it’s Jetpack API to mature which would make the extension ecosystem cross platform (if I am not mistaken- much like Opera’s Widgets concept). A brilliant idea but far ahead of it’s time since the widgets can run on any platform. It’s too bad that most of the tech writers are craving about Chrome’s apps which are crappy useless bookmarks.

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Image via Wikipedia

Forget the statistics, the “key words” or even foward looking statements. Although strictly not under the purview of the blog, mobile Internet has attracted the attention of lot of people. Even though, it cannot support the applications that a true broadband needs (due to inherent limitations of medium), it is perceived to be cheaper than laying down optic fibre cables. The existing mobile towers can be rejigged and made to serve the customers with fewer incremental investments.

In any case, this again is a reflection of state of mobile internet in India. Opera has launched Appia powered Mobile App Store which would serve the needs for “apps”. I am not aware of how the apps are coded but perhaps they are platform agnostic.

Opera Mini is on a roll. Not only they have a clear dominance in over 200 countries but a simple elegant Java powered mobile app is awesome. I have used it on my Android and can testify to it’s usefulness. Infact, it is easy to download and run it on an emulator and use it tethered to your GPRS handset.

Mini has also been sucessful over it’s mobile counterparts (or something like BOLT which are alternatives in mobile space) for one simple reason; it’s ability to compress the data and serve it to end user. So far, they have not mentioned about the huge amount of data flowing in through their data centre but nevertheless, they would be willing to scale up, build profiles (if I am not mistaken, best way out would be individually numbering each download) and then serve it up for targetted advertisments. It is all a matter of scale.

On the flip side, it’s petition in EU against Microsoft has not really worked “the wonders” that it was required to. It’s desktop share is still a pathetic 2% worldwide despite being ahead in the innovation game. I am using Firefox 4 presently (nightly builds) and can testify that it is one of most significant advances in the history of open source browsers. Though Web Kit based browsers are cool (over proprietary engines like Presto- which again is a matter of debate), I can see some real heavy lifting done by Firefox; be it in extension development or all around stability fixes.

At least, on my Linux Mint installation (with a few other extensions) it is a great product; in consonance with Thunderbird, the migration to Open Source is complete.

Getting back to Opera, it still needs to tone up it’s work flow. At least, that seems to be a despondent mood on the forums/ news groups. After sticking out years crowing about web standards (yes, they are important) but persistent arguments about Acid 3 compliance and being the “fastest” out their are wearing thin. I care not about the fancy “tests” for they have no meaning for me as far as the page is rendered on my useless BSNL. I see the lag where it matters the most and is hurting Opera users.

Still, I wish them the best for their app store which would be a significant gain of revenues; it could have been implemented with some form of micropayments (which would be a pain to implement it) in an ecosystem where there is no clear defined “way out”. App based advertisments (like Angry Birds for Android) is surely a way to go.

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Interestingly, the statics from stat counter tell a different story. If you look carefully, the bars are segmented differently for Chrome (having multiple instances) whereas, “other browsers” are lumped in one category.

Source: StatCounter Global Stats – Browser Version Market Share

(This allows the script to be run on the blog, please disable any ad blockers or No-script if you have one enabled).

Interesting. Although I insist that I don’t agree to the opaque methodology being used here; there could be many variables linked to the actual usage statistics. Opera Mini rules the roost as far as mobile browsers are concerned. This is also a reflection of the broadband uptake; pathetic story.

This also set me thinking. Why don’t we have something similar in India? Why can’t we have any application developed locally to visualize data?

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This news has come in from FastCompany

As it says:
The Webbox is externally just a 14cm by 25cm QWERTY keyboard that has an RCA cable dangling from its rear–this coaxial cable will connect to a domestic TV tuned to a particular channel, and lets Webbox content appear on its screen. Inside it’s pretty sophisticated, with the guts of a 3G smartphone powering it–it runs over EDGE or 2.5G networks to get its data, and leverages Opera’s Mini browser suite (which compresses web pages to much smaller file sizes remotely) to ensure that the data burden on cell phone networks is low–which is good for low-income users and struggling cell networks alike–and that the device works swiftly.

It is an interesting concept. It combines a ‘mobile telephony’ through 2.5G (or horrors of horrors through GPRS) and thence output through your television.

I have run Opera Mini on my laptop through Java Emulator; it’s brilliant access at times when I don’t have access to Wifi. This Internet TV is something similar in it’s approach although they have routed the output through a usual TV.

However, this is not the end all. Heavy Java Script sites would not work; although the demo is not clear, Opera Mini is expected to run the mobile versions alone; this is not a very pleasant experience.

What gets my goose is that India has been lumped with the bygone nations -Kenya, Ghana and others. This only reflects their “poverty of thought” and generalized assholism. I am not a fan of Vodafone at all; despite their slick advertisements, it does nothing to “serve” it’s customers and perhaps one of the worst telecom companies. Nevertheless, this is a good innovation; it remains to be see how well they are able to capitalize on this, if and when it is launched.

Oh by the way, expect some rather crude “download limits”; these buggers are going to charge you per kb. Their billing systems are pathetic and try wrangling out the details from their customer care executives. You’d be appalled.

Last but not the least. Beyond certain “platitudes” and ass licking in the media (with crumbs thrown at the journalists and news papers), I really doubt whether they would have a mass market for it. They could have easily loaded up Opera Mobile instead.

And yes, as the dingbat in the advertisement says about “technological leap”, it isn’t so. The mobile phone circuits (and the RAM) is cheap with an output for the TV and external keyboard. It’s not big deal but it’s a good idea.

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Nokia India is seeing a decreasing market share because it is staffed up by inefficient morons who have no clue where the technology trends are heading for. Even on their “low end 3G handsets”, I don’t see mention of Opera Mini, a Java based browser, but their inane persistence towards technological harakiri. Hence the rise of alternative technological platforms to access mobile internet.

Even in the huge market, the per capita consumption is barely 7MB per month which may be true (reflects my own usage on Docomo that I have). The idea behind having Mini installed is that it efficiently compresses the page before it is rendered on your handset. Nokia has not been able to get ANY traction in this market and Opera is seeing millions of page views per month through it’s data centre.

This of course worries me as a Desktop user. Even though it grows in popularity in mobile space and earns revenue from Google for it’s searches, it does not seem to have a spill over in the desktop segment.

Although they have done everything to open up the extensions framework but it seems that it is bound to be doomed the way Opera Unite/ Opera Widgets were. There is no palpable excitement in the blogosphere about this.

Apart from this, IMHO, mobile internet has a huge potential to grow in terms of “apps”. These little widgets are a rage and out of all the mobile operators only Aircel seems to be doing something right. At least they have created a framework for the same to spur on internet usage. To be honest, I haven’t seen their application in real time but their advertisements are a pointer towards the same. Yet, if they were REALLY smart, they would open up their application framework

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Like all good things in life, I strongly believe in the power of Internet. I am glad Opera team is going full throttle to release it’s new versions to “unleash” it’s power on your tiny screen. I am no fan of the mobile internet but if that helps me to stay connected, so be it!

Download Opera Mini

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Broadcom never ever designed it’s chips to work with linux in general. It took a lot of effort to make it work; I had to download and install the drivers, search up forums and pair the router to the modem. It was a concerted effort that lasted well over a period of 3 days….every effort was worth it for sure.

I am typing this out as a You tube video streams out to my laptop. I would looking forward to get a phone that supports Wifi and check out what the fuss about the Opera Mini is all about i.e. surf wirelessly on another handset. It’s all about connectivity. Maybe a phone that installs Skype and I could use the Wifi connection to connect to people around the world. The possibilites have opened up.

Its a dream come true; finally managed to have something that people around the world did. Its a long way off the mark but then imagine when the world opens up at the fingertips for those who have never been able to do so otherwise earlier on. Thats the power of pervasive Internet and that is something I want for all. I hope that this utopian dream comes true.

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Here is a list of the new features. You can download this application from here:

http://www.operamini.com/download/

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Nokia 6300,

This is my latest acquistion after considering a lot of other factors. The recent price cuts also fuelled the decision to buy one.

I have had an excellent review of this handset; my sibling was using this handset for the past 1 year and reported no loss of functionality with it. It has a brilliant colour screen which makes it readbale in full daylight.

I wouldn’t go in the technical specifications; what got me interested was that it comes with Opera Mini preloaded. Unfortunately, my current service provider, Vodafone, has one of the lousiest GPRS access with sky high rates for access. This makes it unviable in the present context.

It would be worthwhile to shift to Reliance GSM, as and when they launch and when the number portability kicks in. It doesn’t get better than this, isnt it? You get to retain your number and expect to look in for a better service.

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Dirty jokes apart, I am clearly excited about the new age mobile applications. iPhone has shown the way and Google’s Android looks much like a rip off the iPhone interface. Unless, you wish to name it as Android and make a fast buck by calling it “open alliance”. The idea sucks but there are a lot of people gung ho about the “possibilities”. I am more inclinded towards the browser because this is one software that connects to the Internet and beyond. The OS (Operating System) becomes redundant for all practical purposes.

I am linking on to a video of Opera Mini (featured on Opera Watch for starters) and the rendering engine is awesome. Unfortunately, much of the “compression” takes place at Opera’s servers before it serves the web page on your handset which raises privacy concerns. However, I must admit that these are “white man’s concerns” and everyone makes money off the big idea as to what people are surfing in real time. Whether you are watching p0rn or doing Internet Banking.

There is a lot to be discovered.

I wasn’t surprised to read that HDFC and Reliance have created a virtual credit card. Now your mobile would become a payment gateway. This is an old concept and I had first reported about rumours that Tata was planning to launch something similar to this. SMS based transactions, if authenticated, are the safest bet to pay your bills because that would work irrespective of your mobile handset. Tatas, as usual, lost a golden oppurtunity to monetise their network spend and instead fell flat needing the star couple to advertise. Pooh. Dimwits conceptualised from the wrong “holes” need to get back to their roots for proper and effective marketing.

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For the same reason, I have never favoured iPods. I’d agree that they are beautiful. They can be easily navigable. But they don’t deliver bang for the buck. It doesn’t always boil down to having the “best” and the “latest” and paying oodles extra for the “coolness” factor. Or that “I have it too”.

Apple iPhone generated a lot of “news” online. After all, it is one smart phone that has wowed the geek audiences. Most of the people were willing to ignore the crappy AT&T services that were bundled for over two years. And that the speeds of access negate everything that iPhone aims to sell.

It is a classic Apple approach to sell underpowered hardware and generate sales for incremental hardware upgrades for later versions. Perhaps they would upgrade the hard drive; change colours, have a better camera or make it work on “better neworks”. I cannot crystal gaze but Jobs needs loads of marketing crap to sell the future versions in the Mac Expos.

However, all this marketing hype has laid focus squarely on the “leaders” like Nokias and Erricsons of the world. With it’s crappy N series handsets, Nokia has not exactly been able to take the market by storm. Their marketing campaigns are squarely based on rolling everything into one which makes the handsets bulky and unweildy. I own a simple basic handset that helps me to stay connected; this is the future driver of the growth for developing countries and I believe that incremental improvements in the battery life or menus would help them to retain the market confidence. At best, the Taiwainese/Korean companies are gearing up to meet the challange from Apple onslaught. I doubt whether they would succeed in the competitive US market; however no one would deny them the chance to innovate. Nokia needs to update it’s Symbian OS which is clunky and slow.

I believe that the sole focus of iPhone is to test market the mobile media and means to access the same. As Internet becomes ubiquitous, the content (and the service providers) would chase you wherever you are.

I believe that the porn industry would squarely benefit from the introduction of iPhone. They have been at the forefront of the technological revolution and it would be interesting to see frustrated “jerkins” using the in thing to surf porn. AT&T is no stranger to this and they have been distributing porn earlier on.

It would be hard to do any justice to this post without linking on to what others are saying. Youth Curry raises a valid point about Apple loosing it’s sales in India because of it’s inept marketing and expensive overheads in form of duties and taxes. Unfortunately, Apple has been loosing sales to illegitimate channels which makes it worse from their perspective. Yet, noting is being done. I wouldn’t be seeing this phone till about next year. This means that only the black market would rule with it’s prices presently.

Opera Watch says that Opera Mini is a better bet anyday. iPhone’s zoom feature is nothing new; it was all there in Opera Mini since it’s launch. Another added advantage is the ability to use a virtual cursor by just using the keys on the keyboard. This makes is much more universal in appeal. Imagine using Opera Mini on the iPhone. I am not sure whether it would be possible to download and install Mini on your sexy brand new acquisition.

Early reviews on the same blog entry show that iPhone is slow. This is to be expected when a “new generation” phone is launched on ancient networks.

Emergic had a series of articles written from across the blogosphere about iPhone. (1,2,3,4,5) Much of it is the adulation of the “iconic iPhone” and makes no sense. However, Cringely hits the nail in the head squarely. He writes :

The iPhone absolutely needs AJAX applications for the phone to be a success on AT&T’s EDGE network. By pushing more functional logic into the browser, the bandwidth consumed per http round-trip is significantly reduced, making the phone apps faster and helping to justify that big price tag. The problem with this is that AJAX apps don’t always work the same (or at all) on every browser. The iPhone has real browser support, which is good, but remember AJAX is based on JavaScript, which in this case is not so good. JavaScript isn’t statically typed and each browser has its own version of JavaScript. Developers are typically forced to hand-code different versions of their AJAX apps for different browsers. With the AJAX economy dictating that browsers with big market share like IE and Firefox get most of the effort, that leaves Safari as a second-class browser and, potentially, a liability for the iPhone.

He feels that iPhones have been deliberately crippled for performance.

Remember that a key component of iPhone marketing is that the device will run a version of OS X, making it more computer than phone. When the iPhone finally ships and some techies have voided their warranties and torn the thing apart, they’ll probably find it uses a processor running at a gigahertz or more — by far the fastest processor ever put in a mobile phone — a processor more powerful than that in my Mom’s PC. With all that power locked inside, of course some users will want to imagine their iPhone AS their PC, which Apple — at least for now — would rather not enable because it might hurt Macintosh sales. So they’ve hobbled the iPhone with essentially the same crappy text entry capability as on any other phone.

Where does that leave Indian market in all that? Apple has been smart enough to realise that the growth story being talked off here is all hogwash. The number of the new handset sales does not justify the accrued numbers. However, there are no concrete statistics for the second hand handset sales. The number may be higher or lower than the professed numbers.

Further, the market is maturing in terms of people willing to try out the value added services. Yet, the billing hassles have not yet been resolved. Another problem is that we hardly get to see demand for “unlimited access”; I believe that some of the operators have such schemes. It truly defines “world wide wait” (www) as it is intended to be. The speed of access is pitiable as compared to dial up for a contrast.

Lets wait and watch for it’s debut in India.

Update: This has been crossposted on Desicritics.

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I am no big fan of Wireless Internet and have long held belief that tiny screens make no sense to “surf” because it’s as good as useless trying to focus on something through that. However, given the state of Broadband access, the wireless Internet via mobiles would definitely grow. And it makes sense for the operators to market their data plans effectively.

It is in the Indian context that likes of Opera Mini are enough to generate excitement. There are a huge number of blogs out there who have mentioned about their “wow” experience (not to be confused with Vista). A browser like Opera Mini would ease the pains of “browsing” to a considerable extent as compared to the present generation sucky “browsers”.

For the technical minded, Opera Mini works by pushing your web address to Opera’s servers and it compresses the web page to render it effectively on the mobile screens. There have been concerns about privacy; I feel that most of the accessed web pages are definitely kept as a “back up” for “data mining” or to correlate the preferences. I am not aware of their backend operations but then it’s a matter of trust. You do keep a back up of your email online. Imagine something like Hotmail! Trusting Microsoft?

Apart from the privacy concerns, Opera Mini actually allows to blog, surf, catch up with RSS feeds et al just like your desktop browser. This, in my opinion, is a great thing to happen because it literally opens up a vast range of possibilities. It would make it easier to develop applications like widgets et al and engaging content. Apple’s iPhone was crowing about the “zoom feature” of Safari on their handsets. This, I am told, came in from Opera’s version for Wii.

Internet is all pervasive and atleast in the “developed” part of the world, embedded browsers make sense to access Internet.

I got an email from the Opera team asking me to blog about this once the new version is out. They had specifically requested me to put up the banners online to promote their product. This is in a way a small contribution to the efforts being put in by many others in order to spread the word. indeed, Opera is the only closed source application on my desktop. This does go against my own professed claims of Open Source alone and nothing else. However, the open source “clone” Firefox sucks to the max and it makes no sense to invest my time and energy and to make it work by extensions.

Interestingly, there is no open source alternative to mobile browsers either, as good as Opera.

You could check out Opera Mini simulator in order to check the compatibilty for your web enabled handset. There is an explosion of interest online about this new application. Opera Watch links to various other blog sites around the world.

Further, if you like the application, please do consider spreading the word around.

Further details of the features on Opera Watch.

I must admit that I don’t have a data enabled handset; nevertheless, it might make sense buying one given the exciting application like Opera Mini.

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Broadband’s fat pipes would ensure this to come true. With the rapid integration of the services, Broadband is slowly moving in our lives and we are truly becoming integrated. While this may be a heavy demand on our resources and short attention spans, I am not going in those details. Imagine a cell phone streaming the live updated messages (possible by Blackberry), the RSS feeds that you have subscribed to (on your cell possible via Opera Mini), free access to the ubiquitous Gmail (on WAP), your own personalised TV channels (on Myth TV) and the power of all pervading Linux boxes powering those nifty details. (While there are many other alternative options to Myth TV, I would ONLY endorse Open Source applications. Opera is the ONLY closed source application that gets endorsed- for one simple reason. They have created a viable model based on closed source while being fully committed to the idea of Open Standards for web as well as software).

The so called next wave of “web 2.0” is for real and would be powered eminently by Broadband; because that is the only way content can be streamed and reached out to you. Arguably, I still have to invest time and resources in setting up a permanent kind of an integrated web page but when I look back, the whole services I subscribe too are way too scattered. I should be able to blog, check feeds, work on word processors et al from a single interface.

Broadband alone has made this effort worthwhile.

Flashback to 1996 when the TCP/IP accounts were first opened up for the public at a princely sum of Rs 10,000. People had fallen over for the “cyber cafe” craze. There were dudes who put up ancient Pentiums in five star hotels, skimpily clad females serving coffee and making some impression on the “clients” who came on in;some lucky guys probably banged them for whatever their buck was worth. (It used to cost over a 1000 bucks per hour-hey to surf online!). Things have changed to an extent that opening up a Cyber cafe isn’t a worthwhile proposition now at all. For all that is worth it, the current slump does not justify for the break even earnings too. No. You would not find skimpily clad females either. Move on with life!

Broadband has clearly changed the rules of the game. I remember the times when couple of my friends used to search around for underground network guys to source their software needs. Or just plain pirated films. Or depend heavily on the “freebies” handed out by the computer magazines. Which incidentally boosted their sales for otherwise totally insipid content. We used to have a massive collection of useless software et al. Broadband has totally changed over the rules of the game. Axxo rules for the movies. Torrents/ Limewire has made the software piracy a nightmare for the peddlers which again is a no brainer. Underground piracy still thrives; nevetheless it has not made much impact in the hinterland where the demand for smut movies is always there.

(The links are only suggestive about the available means for accessing content and I DONOT ENDORSE them in ANY MANNER whatsoever).

Not to mention the “podcasts” and viral videos. They are a swell and we just might be seeing the return of the one minute movie formats. You Tube is powering much of this phenomenon.

In all Broadband would radically alter the rules of the game. However, uninformed as the Indian customer is, it would be time before be could free ourselves from the clutches of the assinine load limits and ISP’s dictating the way we access content/ services. Think about net neutrality(1, 2, 3,4 ); something that I feel needs to be debated across a wider spectrum.

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I believe that the future might as well belong the Blackberry like devices. They allow you to stay connected with your email- big deal really? It is an expensive toy (with expensive subcription fees) and comes as an add on to the moronish grey suited corporate types who act as if they are important. Arguably, Airtel wanted people to adopt this on a mass scale and recently reduced the rates for the same.

Reliance once held a promise of “fast download speeds of upto 144kbps”; though those who are spoilt for speeds (even though on so called wireline broadband) would find this a chore to connect to their email accounts. GPRS sucks majorly; even though this has been sweetened to some extent by the excellent Opera Mini browser. ( I would endorse Opera anyday). The best deal in Wireless remains for Wifi in India. I believe that community powered wireless, providing free access to the people (as opposed to the likes of frigging ISP’s like Sify) is the way to go. Jaipur is in the process of introducing the wireless Internet in the future and I shall be looking forward to know about it’s progress.

One of the reasons for this post was Mozilla’s chief commenting that mobile internet is a dead dodo. Even if they comments were quoted out of context, I am sure that there is a reason to give him a benefit of doubt. Mozilla sucks anyday as a browser and it is a clear cut case of grapes turning sour. Being beaten hollow in the browser innovations, Mozilla is sucking to whatever it can.

Meanwhile, Cingular is offering streaming video clips to it’s subscribers in US; thus ushering in the 3G networks in US. The content providers never had it so good. Though, I am seriously wondering as to who would want to watch the whole episode of Lost ( some kind of a sitcom which excites the brain dead Americans) on a teeny weeny screen. I am sure that content moghuls would find some more innovative ways to monetise their collections.

P.S. There are interesting articles posted on Business Standard though their URL’s don’t seem to last forever. I would definitely want to have permission to copy and paste their write ups. Does anyone know how to apply for the permission? Any information would be surely appreciated.

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There was a palpable excitement with the release of the mobile browser. I am excited for the fact that this browser can be used in Java Enabled handsets. It means, you can direct any WAP based browser towards the website and it’s as simple as downloading a ring tone. Further, it would do some good to the sagging fortunes of GPRS access and perhaps spur on more users to access Internet via mobile screens. I am not very enthused but it could mean a lot for rural access, if we can have localised content specifically for the mobiles.

Opera mini can be found here. Some screenshots to have a look.

( For those who feel miffled because of Opera vs Firefox statement here, this is an excellent blog post from an Opera Employee here. The much vaunted extensions are often lousy, broken and buggy. A low down of the various extensions can be found here and here.)

I would welcome any feedback in case someone has used Opera Mini on his (/her- very unlikely- similar to finding an “intelligent concerned BSNL employee”- you know the odds!) mobile.

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