Reuters writes:

Now cell phones are serving as a bank in your pocket, providing virtual accounts for South Africans excluded from the financial mainstream by exorbitant charges and branch networks clustered in wealthy white suburbs.

"I used to keep my money in an envelope stuffed under my mattress," said Mpanza, a community worker in the Johannesburg township of Soweto. "With most banks you need lots of papers, but with this one, all you need is a cell phone."

Open to anyone with a phone, mobile banking has proved a hit with people such as Mpanza in South Africa's townships and villages, and looks set to spread quickly across Africa.

Account holders use text messages, or SMS, to pay for goods, transfer money to friends and family and top up the credit on their pre-pay phones. Bosses can pay salaries direct into cellular accounts and customers can deposit cash at Post Offices and some bank branches.

Ramesh Jain writes about the importance of the Time dimension:

If people can talk about Web2.0 and Where2.0, then why not When2.0?

When is definitely important. Time is arguably the most valuable resource we have. We can produce everything else, well almost everything, but can not produce extra time. Since we have only limited time and conflicting demands on our time, we as a society have always been developing tools and technology to make our time more productive, exciting, enjoyable, and rewarding. So it is important that we pay attention to time.

Interestingly, on the Web time has not received as much attention as it should have.

Tomi Ahonen writes about seven media:

1. Printing Press
2. Recordings
3. Cinema
4. Radio
5. TV
6. Internet
7. Mobile Phone

Dion Hinchcliffe writes:

I believe Web 2.0, as exciting as it is, is only starting to happen. We have a long way to go and lots of interesting developments are taking place almost daily which are changing the very ground upon which we all stand. For example, I wrote about AMASS in an article last week. AMASS provides a pretty clean and simple client-side storage system for Web 2.0 applications to permanently keep information on your local computer without badly breaking security or being too egregious a hack. Now someone has mashed-up that capability with TrimQuery, a JavaScript database engine that provides the capabilities of a robust SQL database in about 700 lines of JavaScript. The result allows extremely sophisticated applications to be built to run in most any browser and run online, or offline, without the risk of losing data. We are watching the Web client turn into a full-blown computing platform in front of our very eyes.

Steve Rubel writes:

Right now, if you think about it, RSS is mostly a passive “receive medium.” First you opt-in to receive the feeds that interest you. Then you wait for new content to be published and later you “consume” it in your news aggregator. Sure, RSS is open for anyone to publish, but in the end we're all shooting at the same hoop - to get individuals passively consuming our content.

What's missing from this equation is the means for an individual to express themselves around a common want or need and then see it aggregated via RSS. For example, automotive companies should be able to subscribe to a feed of all the people who expressed interest in buying a hybrid car from their brand (assuming they don't already offer one). Politicians should be able to easily find an RSS feed of all individuals who support a particular bill. And Dell should be able to subscribe to a feed that aggregates all of the people who are voicing complaints about their computers.

Tim O’Reilly was at the event and this is what he blogged:

Bill [Gates] articulates five "Live" Principles, remarkably similar to some of the points I've talked about as Web 2.0: His list:

Software plus service

Server = Service

Support multiples pcs and devices

Multiple styles of client

Combination of client software, peer-to-peer, and internet services
…
The big takeaway: Microsoft is fully engaged with thinking about what I've called "Web 2.0." They are focused on the internet as the platform, on software as a service, on creating rich experiences across multiple devices, on live update as a metaphor for both software and documents, on grassroots adoption as a result of user conversations. They are also very clearly focused on advertising as a new business model. We're hearing all the Web 2.0 buzzwords: RSS, AJAX, social networking.

Another key takeaway for me from this presentation was that Microsoft realizes the power of being able to build an integrated experience across a hardware device, a software application, and an internet service.

In short, what Microsoft announced was its intention to launch an online services platform. Or, to borrow the headline from seasoned Microsoft watcher Mary Jo Foley, Microsoft 'Live': 'Hailstorm' Take 2. Mary quite rightly identifies that the only thing really new in yesterday's announcement was the positioning and packaging of a cluster of existing initiatives. And compare Microsoft's press statement about APIs above with what she quotes from the company's original descriptions of Hailstorm: "a set of user-centric XML Web services that enable developers to build solutions that work seamlessly with one another over the Internet to deliver a more personalized and consistent user experience."

Michael Arrington wrote [1 2]:

Windows Live is a free, ad-supported AJAX virtual desktop. Most of the functionality could be seen in the Microsoft sandbox project called Start, which we profiled a couple of months ago.

However, Microsoft has added plenty of new features that add a lot of value to the product. Among them are email integration, a new instant messaging client, plaxo-like contact management and skype-like features that allow outgoing calls to normal POTS phones. Windows Live is also extensible via “gadgets”. After what I saw today, I despair for many a silicon valley startup.
…
Office Live should become a starting point for small businesses wanting a web presence and a general platform to run their business operations.

If Microsoft can hold on to them as they grow by offering additional services, it will become a lucrative product for them. And the ad inventory they will generate from page views will also be highly valuable to advertisers selling into the small business space.

I expect Live services to be extremely targeted, Office for small businesses and Windows for active online consumers. As such, Live services won't be for everyone. If, say, you're a consumer that actively blogs, incessantly IMs throughout the day and streams or downloads music, Windows Live could be a good fit…A few people have asked me what "Live" means. While I see Microsoft's reasoning for tying into Office and Windows brands, I'm skeptical of Live's appeal. Live certainly doesn't grab me, and, yes, there is uncertainty about what it means. Is it supposed to mean the living Web? Maybe community or safety? I'll let Microsoft answer that question.