[Web4lib] Optimizing services for the low-bandwidth communities

[K.G. Schneider]

One of the coolest examples of how Muhammad Yunus's microloans help people
is a woman taking out a loan for $150 to get a cell phone.  She then travels
from village to village and resells her minutes, acting as a local pay
phone.  Then someone with rice to  sell can call the market in the next town
and find out if the price is worth the journey. 

————
All the suggestions are good, though Rich is really echoing what's in the
back of my mind on two levels.

One is that the cell phone is ubiquitous in South Africa. People either have
cell phones or use communal cell phone booths. For large portions of the
population, cell phone is a FIRST, not a supplemental service—POTS never got
there, and the Web ain't there yet. But the cell phone has made a huge
impact (I love that microloan example). 

———

We live in a world where Internet connection speeds vary from 56K to 768K to
a few megabits per second to 10, and 100, and 1000.  And from 20 inch
screens to 12 inch to 4 inch on a cell phone.  A properly designed Web site
can serve them all. 

/rich

———

That's the other angle I was zeroing in on: tips for ensuring your website
(or library service) can reach the user. 

I don't want to write my column here (I'm sure my editor is relieved to hear
that :> ) but after being in South Africa for a couple of days before giving
a talk on Library 2.0, I scrapped some ideas, modified others, and should
have talked more about SMS and cell phones. Someone mentioned Google: boy,
talk about a site that will perform well under any circumstances. I was
presenting over a 40 kbps connection, and Google was a champ—but Amazon did
pretty well, interestingly. MPOW's site did well too, as I smugly
demonstrated during my talk. But some sites were horrendous—forget about
Second Life—while some, such as Flickr, could really benefit from some low
bandwidth (lowband?) options. 

I like David Dorman's "meta" suggestions; but tips for library website
maintainers, L2 advocates, etc. are also welcome.

Karen G. Schneider
kgs at bluehighways.com