Egrants.mobi

egrants.mobi was the world's first operational .mobi site for online government services (m-government).

Milestones

• 26 Sep 2006: .mobi domain names available for public registration.
• 28 Sep 2006: egrants.mobi domain name registered.
• 6 Oct 2006: Telstra switched on its new $1bn HSDPA network, Providing high speed mobile broadband services over a wide geographic area covering 98% of Australia's population.
• 10 Oct 2006: egrants.mobi went live, providing mobile device access to egrants.com, an online front desk for Federal government grants. The first service available involved direct login access to a grantee's file with an ability to check the payment status of an application and status of a ProgresS report.

egrants.mobi was intended to extend the reach and access of e-government beyond traditional internet-connected users to users with mobile devices, such as mobile phones and PDAs.

Issues in m-government: late 2006

The ability to deliver m-government, or m-commerce services depends on the development of technology, services and user capabilities. Key issues in late 2006 included:

• "Windows" navigation: a choice of up/down/left/right keys, joysticks, ring-bars, etc.
• User awareness AbOUT internet services for mobiles: very limited
• Proprietary browsers: some browsers packaged in mobile phone software were not intuitive for PC browser users - see web-channel fragmentation. Icon-driven navigation (the most intuitive windows navigation technique) was difficult because early mobile phone browsers did not highlight a selected icon, and DHTML (e.g. Javascript) was not supported. Numbered menus (unattractive) were the most successful (and .mobi compliant) navigation technique.
• Positioning of internet services in a mobile phone's services stack. Users found it difficult to Drill down into the layers of services primarily oriented for phone use to find internet services (tacked on).
• Slow Delivered service: even with HSDPA, the load time for very small web pages was slow.

Progress in m-government: late 2007

There has been substantial progress in the last year in terms of technology, services and user capabilities.

• "Windows" navigation: more "intuitive" navigation is now available with "touch screens" (e.g. Apple iPhone) and styluses (e.g. O2 PDA)
• User awareness about internet services for mobiles: limited, but much greater than a year ago. Search engines, directories, airlines, etc are providing and promoting user services. Other services, such as e-mail (e.g. Blackberry), VOIP (e.g. Skype) and GPS, are attracting users to more capable devices and higher capacity services. The "churn" of device renewal will create exponential growth in supply and demand for internet and other services for mobile devices.
• Browsers: Microsoft and Apple are extending their reach into mobile devices with browsers that work more intuitively for laptop/desktop users. Browsers are at or near the top of the "services" layer ... they are easier to find and use. 3G mobile broadband services have expanded the viability of m-government and m-commerce.

Forward view: 2008

• [Very likely] As they "churn" their mobile devices in a short renewal cycle, users will select more powerful devices with intuitive browsers and navigation techniques (touch and stylus)
• [Very likely] An increasing population of users will increase their use of internet-based services rather than specialised mobile services ... for example, there will be email and chat competition for SMS users
• [Likely] An increasing range of internet services will be available for recreational, search, and commercial use ... however government services will lag these other uses
• [Possible] The value and relevance of the .mobi standard may become less significant ... overtaken by rapid advances in capabilities of mobile devices, services and users.

See also

• Egovernment: e-government
• m-commerce: m-commerce
• Federal grant: government grants
• .mobi: .mobi top level domain

External links

• egrants.com: internet based grant website - for personal computers
• egrants.mobi: extension to egrants.com - for mobile phones and PDAs
• egov.gov: US Presidential egovernment initiative
• firstgov.gov: US government portal
• grants.gov: US grants portal