Web 2.0 to boost mobile internet usage
Mobile internet users will top 1.7 billion by 2013 thanks to Web 2.0, new research claims.
Juniper Research said it believes that Web 2.0, a term for various collaborative applications, will spur a boom from the current figure of 577 million users in the next five years.
A shift towards direct-to-consumer models, driven by such applications as instant messaging and user generated content, means mobile network operators and handset manufacturers are pressured to give some of their control of the value chain to third parties.
Ian Chard, Juniper Research analyst, said major web players had already entered the mobile domain.
He added that business models for the mobile Web 2.0 market were "in a state of flux", allowing mutually beneficial partnerships to open up.
Despite this, Mr Chard warned that the "window of opportunity, however, is closing".
Recent research by IDC predicted that the number of regular unique internet users will surpass 1.9 billion - 30 per cent of the world’s population - in 2012.
John Gantz, chief research officer at IDC, said the internet enabled people to "work, play and socialise any time from anywhere".
