Facebook Announces Internet.org
Imagine all of Earth’s seven billion inhabitants to be connected, every day 24/7! This may soon become a reality and open x-potential business and social opportunities.
Facebook founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg announced on his profile page today the launch of a new global partnership with a range of companies aiming to make the Internet available to everyone on the planet.
The new project, known as internet.org, will be developed in cooperation with Samsung Electronics, Nokia, Qualcomm, Ericsson, Opera and others. It will strive to provide Internet connection to the nearly five billion people around the world who don’t have it yet. Currently, around 2.7 billion people or one-third of the world’s population doesn’t have Internet access. And about one in seven people globally use Facebook. This number will apparently change after the planned initiatives and projects take place. According to Zuckerberg, the members of Internet.org will work together with the industries and governments to bring the whole world online by cutting the cost of providing Internet services.
For Facebook, this initiative must aim at decreasing the cost of Internet on mobile phones in developing countries. Google on the other hand, started a joint project with phone carriers last year which grants users of Wi-Fi free access to Gmail, its search engine, as well as free access to the first page opened in the search results. Another initiative is Google’s Project Loon, which tries to “beam” Internet down to Earth from plastic balloons flying high in the atmosphere. Twitter also worked with cell phone companies to make its service not only free, but also easy to access even on the cheapest phones.
The immediate goals of Internet.org include a 1 percent decrease of mobile Internet within five to ten years. This will happen by optimizing Internet networks and the mobile phone software. According to Zuckerberg, Facebook is already working on a project which is aimed to cut the average amount of data, used by its mobile application for Android devices. Currently, the number reaches 12 megabytes per day, but after launching its program, it is believed to drop to 1 megabyte without any inconveniences for the users. Of course, some of these projects seem too indefinite and almost a science fiction for many users, but others have pretty good planning and promise a real change. Whether the entire world is going online or not, we are about to see, but certainly the idea sounds just too good.
