MORE INTERNET CONNECTIVITY FOR EVERYONE

Image via CrunchBase

I loathe the digital divide — and since net access is starting to be done overwhelmingly from mobile devices, I’m working hard to figure out how people with simpler, less costly mobile devices and plans can still benefit from what the internet has to offer.

A just-announced deal to make Opera Mini the default browser on phones that use Qualcomm’s popular BREW MP platform could start revolutionizing the mobile web browsing experience for cheap, non-smart cell phones as early as this summer…

For the Oakland Local mobile initiative, I’ve been focusing mainly on “feature phones” — that is, cheap phones that generally lack full-featured web browsers and the ability to run native apps, and that also usually can only access slow “1X” wireless data networks. Butaccording to ComScore’s latest data, 73% of US mobile users still rely on feature phones. And my own mobile market research survey showed that only 30% of Oakland mobile users own smartphones.

What was interesting about my survey was that I found that 88% of Oakland’s mobile users access the web from their phones daily or most days — which means that most of that web surfing is happening on feature phones, despite the difficulties those devices present. This indicates that feature phone users desire mobile web access so much that they’re willing to wrestle with the clunky, limited, slow “microbrowsers” that typically come with their phones.

Imagine what would happen if cost-conscious mobile users could still have a cheap phone, with a cheap month-to-month plan, but which also came with a pretty decent and much faster web browser that could display most web pages fairly well? Mobile web usage would likely explode. That’s why this deal is a huge leap forward to bridge the digital divide, and a boon to web publishers and advertisers as well.

That’s what Opera Mini will do. Right now, Qualcomm’s BREW MP platform is available on over 1700 feature phone models from over 70 mobile phone manufacturers.

The market penetration of Qualcomm BREW MP blows away smartphone user numbers, and probably will continue to vastly outnumber smartphones for the next few years at least. And with the addition of a better mobile web experience, I expect that more and more feature phones will use this option. Consumers will demand it.

This is why anyone who hopes to engage all of a local community — not just the people with enough money to afford fancy smartphones with pricey two-year contracts — through the devices they already have in their hands and take with them everywhere they go, needs to make low-end (“lean”) mobile the core of their mobile strategy. This is especially important if your business model involves selling ads, because selling ads really means delivering eyeballs.

This means that the first step in your mobile strategy should be to make sure your web site displays reasonably well on the kinds of web browsers available on feature phones.

So far, lean mobile has been challenging, since feature phone “microbrowsers” are pretty awful. It’s hard to simplify a site that much — it’s as much an editorial challenge as a design and technology issue.

But if feature phones start getting browsers like Opera Mini, that’s a game-changer. You’ll still have to develop a mobile-friendly theme for your site, but it can include more elements and you can do more with it than has been the case so far.

The leaner, cheaper end of mobile technology will always be the biggest part of the consumer mobile market, and that’s where publishers who really care about community (and advertising) must have a strong presence. Smartphone and tablet apps are cool and beautiful — but in terms of a market, they’re expensive McMansions built on technological cul-de-sacs.

This means that Africa is bound to be more and more connected wireless as compared to the rest of the world. The penetration of the social networks, bloggs will mean more access to information by those in the digital divide.