. Mobile Development › introduction 6.1 introduction The mobile phone might be a small gadget, but it has revolutionised our lives. It has already had a profound impact on the way we communicate and conduct ourselves daily, and this continues to be felt as the mobile phone enables new ways to market, and new markets in which to interact. The Internet transformed our world in two fundamental ways: It gave anyone with access to the Internet the opportunity to interact easily with others (including companies and brands); and through search, it has made information readily available. Developed as a platform for academics to share information, the web has a strong ethos of free content. More recently, mobile phones are changing the way in which we access the Internet and communicate with each other. Mobile phones can be considered a developing technology, which means new and better features are continuously being packed into ever smaller devices. Using mobile devices and their features builds on the interactive nature of the Internet, with users being able to create and consume content from almost anywhere in the world. While the Internet and the personal computer have had a profound impact on the world in which we transact, it is the mobile phone that presents an exciting opportunity for most of the world’s population. The term “mobile devices” of course applies to a number of devices that are becoming more and more common. Tablet computers and even netbooks can be considered mobile devices. This chapter focuses primarily on the mobile phone, but many of the design principles apply, whether you are discussing a mobile phone or a tablet. Current figures indicate that there are 1.7 billion people worldwide with access to the Internet. Of those, 1.3 billion are active users of email. With the world’s population at 6.7 billion, that’s almost a fifth of the population who can be reached by email. However, compare that to five billion mobile phone subscribers - more than half of the world’s population. Of that five billion, only one billion aren’t active users of short message service (SMS) text messaging (Comscore 2011). That means that almost 60% of the world’s population could be reached by an SMS. INTERNET ACCESS 1.7 BILLION WORLD ACTIVE USERS OF EMAIL WORLD POPULATION 1.3 BILLION POPULATION 6.7 BILLION 6.7 BILLION MOBILE PHONE SUBSCRIBERS 5 BILLION AREN’T ACTIVE USERS OF SMS 1 BILLION Figure 6.1 Current Global Internet Access.140