Kikabink News

Want to know how the U.S. presidential candidates, Senator John McCain (Republican Party) and Senator Barack Obama (Democratic Party) compare on technology and Internet policy?

Here are two videos that give an indication of where the candidates stand on the issues as they see them:

John McCain:

Barack Obama:

A recent survey by Compete has found that while still in its infancy, mobile banking is likely to grow, with 23 percent of consumers saying they would find mobile banking ‘very useful’.

While only 5 percent of people who use Internet banking do so using a mobile device, Mike Perlman from Compete believes that mobile banking adoption will grow. This will happen as more consumers access the Internet from a mobile device, and technology and partnerships make the usability of this banking channel easier.

Source: Mike Perlman, “Are Consumers Clamoring for Mobile Banking?” Compete, October 17, 2008

An ABI Research study reveals that more people are accessing social networks via mobile (cell) phones and devices.

Based on an online survey of 500 users conducted in the second quarter of 2008, ABI Research found that 46 percent of those who used social networks also accessed them via mobile phone.

Of those sites visited, the most popular two by far were MySpace (70 percent) and Facebook (67 percent). All other sites came in below 15 percent.

Source: Enid Burns, “Mobile Web Visitors Flock to Social Sites”, The ClickZ Network, October 7, 2008

The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) estimates that there will be over four billion mobile subscribers worldwide by the end of the year.

Mobile telephone subscriptions have grown by around 24 percent per year between 2000 and 2008. According to the ITU, in 2000 12 percent of the world’s population had mobile (or ‘cell’) phones. At the start of this year, mobile penetration exceeded 50 percent, and is now expected to reach 61 percent by the end of the year.

Of course, ’subscriber’ does not necessarily equal ‘person’ so the ITU’s claims of global penetration may be somewhat exaggerated. Still, it’s impressive growth.

Source: Enid Burns, “Mobile Subscribers Increase Worldwide”, The ClickZ Network, October 2, 2008

Good news for European mobile phone users: the European Union plans to introduce price controls to limit the costs of both sending short text messages (SMS) and accessing the Internet.

The European Union’s telecommunications minister, Viviane Reding, is proposing to cap retail roaming fees for text messages at 11 euro cents (16 U.S. cents) per message. This amounts to a 62 percent drop from the current average of 29 cents.

The European Union also proposes to halve the wholesale cost of using mobile phones to access the Internet. This would bring the average cost down to one euro per megabyte.

Source: Kevin O’Brien, “Europe Weighs Caps on Roaming Fees for Text Messages”, The New York Times, September 3, 2008