At a keynote presentation at the 2014 Mobile World Congress, Mark Zuckerberg opened up on his plans for the global coalition called Internet.org.
Zuckerberg talked about Facebook’s acquisition of Whatsapp, and called out Globe Telecom in the Philippines as an example of how Facebook – as part of Internet.org’s plans– is working with local partners to connect the world.
The keynote was presented as a discussion between The Facebook Effect author David Kirkpatrick and Zuckerberg, with moderated questions rounding out the discussion.
Working with Globe and building a model
The reasoning for building up an ecosystem that encourages companies and individuals to support the Internet is that by allowing people to see the value of having connectivity, they will want to spend for it.
Zuckerberg cited two countries and companies working with Facebook as a sort of testbed for developing a business model that will not only grow the business of partner companies, but also fulfill Internet.org’s ambitions of connecting the world.
Zuckerberg cited the Philippines and Facebook’s partnership with Globe Telecom as his first example. Globe teamed up with Facebook to offer Globe users with phones that support Facebook as a feature free access to Facebook and Facebook Messenger back in 2013.
He also called out Paraguay and mobile phone operator Tigo to provide users with free Internet services.
Zuckerberg explained the tentative results by saying, “I don’t want to say that we have all the answers yet, but the early results are promising. We’re at the point where we’ve proved to ourselves that the model can work.”
Future revisions to the business model would involve allowing upselling or other tweaks to allow partner companies to recoup losses. He also explained that future iterations of the Internet.org’s plans would include year-long partnerships with companies in “ maybe 3 or 5 countries that are really serious about connecting everyone in their country to services.”
Story from rappler.com website
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