4. The great equalizer

Very early on, denizens of countries in transition have caught on to "great equalizer" effects of Net. They used it to vent their frustrations and aggression, to conduct cyber-warfare, to unleash an explosion of visual creativity and to engage in deconstructive discourse.

By great equalizer - I meant equalizer with rich, developed countries. See article I quoted above. The citizens of countries in transition are frustrated by their inability to catch up with affluence and prosperity of West. They feel inferior, neglected, looked down upon, dictated to and, in general, put down. The Internet is perceived as something which can restore balance. Only, of course, it cannot. It is still a rich people's medium. President Clinton points out Digital Divide within America - such a divide exists to a much larger extent and with more venomous effects between developed and developing world. Internet has done nothing to bridge this gap - on contrary: It enhanced productivity and economic growth (this is known as "The New Economy") of rich countries (mainly States) and left have-nots in dust.

5. Intellectual property

The concept of intellectual property - foreign to global Internet culture to start with - became an emblem of Western hegemony and monopolistic practices. Violating copyright, software piracy and hacking became both status symbols and a political declaration of sorts. But rapid dissemination of programs and information (for instance, illicit copies of reference works) served to level playing field.

Piracy of material is quite prevalent in countries in transition. The countries in transition are second capital of piracy (after Asia). Software, films, even books - are copied and distributed quite freely and openly. There are street vendors who deal in counterfeit products - but most of it is sold through stores and OEMs.

I think that intellectual property will go way pharmaceutical industry did: Instead of fighting windmills - owners and distributors of intellectual property will join trend. They are likely to team up with sponsors which will subsidize price of intellectual property in order to make it affordable to denizens of poor countries. Such sponsors could be either multi-lateral institutions (such as World Bank) - or charities and donors.

Sam Vaknin is the author of Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited and After the Rain - How the West Lost the East. He is a columnist for Central Europe Review, United Press International (UPI) and eBookWeb and the editor of mental health and Central East Europe categories in The Open Directory, Suite101 and searcheurope.com.

Visit Sam's Web site at http://samvak.tripod.com

3)3G and Mobile Advertising

3G technology will enable advertisers to send more sophisticated and customized permission-based advertisements to their target audience’s mobile devices. This will be an improvement from current SMS. There will be a convergence between internet and wireless technology as target audience can request that more product information be sent as email. It is unlikely that these services will provide a sustainable advantage over long run but they will shape brand perception of an operator at initial stage of introduction of wireless Internet services.

However, with rise of m-commerce, ‘business-webs ’will become even more powerful as every customer will become linked into web. According to Keith Shank of Ericsson, wireline operators will have to find a way to integrate with wireless by providing a package of combined service capabilities and transparent coverage. Demanding consumers will want convergence of wireline, wireless and data services.

4)From E-Learning to M-Learning

The future holds a lot of promise for E-Learning Industry. Martyn Sloman, author of The e-learning revolution has been quoted as saying "The pace of change in global economy and advances in communications technology means that there is no debate about whether e-learning is future or not. It clearly is. Latest assessments indicate that competitive organisations will soon be delivering up to a fifth of their training through Internet, intranets or web."

With greater acceptance of e-learning, mobile learning (m-learning) will be thrive. An example of how 3G can power m-learning is when a student who may be late for a lecture can view entire proceedings through screen of a mobile device. It is also not far-fetched idea that same student can even sit for a test by entering a password through mobile device.

Challenges Ahead

Privacy is a huge question as in case of m-commerce, each of us will leave a trail of “digital crumbs”. With increasing likelihood of a convergence between net and wireless technology in many facets of social and business interactions, each of us will leave a mirror image of ourselves as we travel around.

Another problem that is highlighted by Eric Schonfeld of eCompany is getting developers interested in creating applications that 3G phones can run. Currently developers tend to ignore markets with fewer than 1 million customers and concurrently, demanding customers insist that 3G phones should have lots of new applications to hold their attention.

Lastly, as sourced from University of California’s Berkeley School of Information Management and System (SIMS) report “How Much Information?” Professors Hal Varian and Peter Lyman analysed industry and governmental reports for production of information in terms of paper, film, optical and magnetic data. Among some of their findings:

§The direct accessible “surface” Web consists of about 2.5bn documents and is growing at a rate of 7.3m pages per day.

§Counting “surface” Web with “deep” Web of connected databases, intranet sites and dynamic pages, there are about 550bn documents, and 95% is publicly accessible.

These findings show that we are already taking in a lot of information even before introduction of wireless communication through 3G. Will there be further information overload or will mobile devices help us manage our daily affairs better?

The concluding 2 sections will provide some pointers:

1)Towards An Information Society

In Foresight Project, an initiative led by New Zealand’s Ministry of Research, Science and Technology has stated that in an information society, individuals who are well-educated, self-motivated, and linked into information networks, are most likely to live prosperous and fulfilling lives. Enterprises that are attuned to their customers’ requirements, employ educated workers, encourage innovation through their workplace organization and, and know more and learn faster than their competitors, are most likely to succeed and grow.

Reinforcing this point, according to Peter Drucker, there is discipline of innovation. This is translated into having a clear mission and defining measurement of results. In event that there are no results, organization should abandon idea and then continue to seek for new and unique opportunities.

2)Future Challenges of a Knowledge-Economy

According to Dr Johari Mat, Secretary General Ministry of Education (Malaysia) at First SEAMEO Education Congress, a Knowledge Economy Index developed using selected key elements required to drive a K-economy such as computer infrastructure, infrastructure, education and training, research and development and technology shows that most countries in this region lag behind developed and newly industrialized countries in terms of readiness to become a K-economy. For instance, Knowledge Economy Index is 3877 for Singapore, 2460 for Malaysia, 1705 for Indonesia, and 1648 for Thailand while Index is 6650 for USA, 5908 for Japan, 4901 for Australia, 4686 for UK, and 3912 for Korea, thus, to make a transition to K-economy, countries in this region face daunting task of putting in place and strengthening core elements required to support K-economy. Efforts need to be accelerated in priority areas of human resource development, science and technology, research and development (R&D), ICT, and lifelong learning.

To conclude, 3G is definitely here to stay despite early glitches. The opportunity of being truly wireless and mobile is just too enticing.