Developing world to dominate Internet 8212; Negroponte

quot;Demographics of the Internet will change, where the dominant player on the Internet will be the developing nations,quot; the author of quot;Being Digitalquot; and co-founder of the Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said.

Negroponte8217;s seminal 1995 book 8212; published before Netscape Communcations Corp existed as a company 8212; sketched out a future that has unfolded nearly as he predicted.

Negroponte said he would invest in Latin American countries where cultural forces such as a healthy disrespect for authority were strong and there were large numbers of young people.

Costa Rica, where output of integrated circuits has exceeded agricultural exports, was an example of a country with a manageable-sized population and good leadership, he said.

Negroponte said in a wide-ranging speech that India and China were Asian nations with vast Internet potential.

India was further along the path with its government firmly behind development of its own Silicon Valley in Bangalore, he said, while China underestimated the impact of the Internet.

quot;In the coming years, the Internet will generate momentum for change and development to unprecedented degrees in China,quot; Negroponte said.

Asked whether the current sell-down in Internet-related companies in global stock markets spelled disillusionment, he said it was merely a setback and that the world could still expect an quot;absolute boomquot;.

quot;We8217;re in a situation where we are overcompensating,quot; Negroponte said. quot;It8217;s a great time to be a contrarian8230;right now if you are liquid.quot;

The business-to-consumer revenue model had cooled somewhat but consumer-to-consumer opportunities such as auction sites were still to be fully tapped, he added.

Other experts, such as Strategic Intelligence Chief strategist Yuwa Hedrick-Wong, said Asia8217;s E-commerce future would be defined by the pace of developments in mobile services.

Innovative examples included Amazon.com using 7-11 stores in Japan as purchase pick-up and payment centres, he said.

quot;Over half of Asia8217;s 500 million mobile subscribers will be broadband enabled in five years,quot; Hedrick-Wong said. quot;Asian markets will be 3G third generation implementation leaders.quot;

Negroponte said Singapore8217;s move to auction licences for 3Gmobile services was a mistake as it would raise costs and impede its rollout.

Singapore will auction four new licences for the 3G mobile spectrum 8212; a technology that provides mobile telephone systems with high-speed access to the Internet so that users can conduct business and even video conferencing through their handsets.

Market sources estimate that Singpaore8217;s auction could raise between 1.1 billion and 2.3 billion for the four licences.

Negroponte said convergence between technology and consumer products would become more commonplace, such as washing machines that could read instructions coded into clothes.