In a continent like Africa most of the people use their mobile phones to access the internet, but one problem most of us face is the expensive data charges that goes along with that.

Enter Facebook Zero, Facebook Zero is a new mobile site like m.facebook.com with all the same key features but more optimised for speed.

What makes Facebook Zero so special? The fact that it is free, that’s correct no data charges if you browse Facebook Zero. Initially it will only be available through 50 mobile operators in 45 countries, currently South Africa is not on that list. Good news however is that MTN will most likely be the first to offer it in South Africa due to them already offering it in other countries like Rwanda, Uganda and Sudan.

Two of the fastest growing areas of technology include Mobile and Social Networking, and Facebook with its already large mobile subscriber base is filling this gap even further by speeding up its service and offering it for free to its customers.

Collaborating with operators from around the world, Facebook developed the new Facebook Zero mobile site with two main attributes:

• It’s fast: 0.facebook.com includes all the key features of Facebook’s standard mobile site m.facebook.com. Users can update their status, view their News Feed, like or comment on posts, send and reply to messages, or write on their friends’ Wall just as they do on Facebook.com. Rather than making photos viewable on 0.facebook.com, they have put the photos one click away so they don’t slow down the experience. You can still view any photos on Facebook if you want but your regular data fees will apply.

• It’s free: Thanks to the help of mobile operators Facebook collaborated with, people can access 0.facebook.com without any data charges. Using 0.facebook.com is completely free. People will only pay for data charges when they view photos or when they leave 0.facebook.com to browse other mobile sites. When they click to view a photo or browse another mobile site a notification page will appear to confirm that they will be charged if they want to leave 0.facebook.com

Facebook Zero will initially only be available on the networks in the countries listed below, but there are plans to expand the service to other countries and network operators soon. Vodafone is also in the pipeline so there may also be hope for local Vodacom users.

Vodacom and RLabs have teamed up to bring you the “Community Information Challenge 2010″. Many people in local communities have mobile phones and use them for voice and text. However, the use of mobile Internet is growing fast and can be used to enhance local communities. The mobile Internet can be used to share many types of information around the globe but there is often difficulty in finding local and relevant information.

The Community Information Challenge is looking for innovative and fresh ideas, on how local and relevant information can be accessed and shared, with the local community. The solution must be deployable in South Africa but is not restricted to this region. The winning entry will receive a one-off prize of R20,000 cash AND the opportunity to discuss deployment options with the Vodacom Innovation team. The overall winner across the three Vodacom Challenges will scoop up a further R 20,000 cash!

For more information you can visit the Betavine website.

The Android based HTC Hero has won the prestigious award of Best Mobile Handset. HTC just announced that its HTC Hero was awarded the prize of the best mobile handset at the 15th Annual Mobile Awards.

“A remarkable 500 entries from across the global mobile ecosystem were submitted this year, all of an extremely high caliber, and the winners should be incredibly proud of their achievements,” said Rob Conway, CEO and Member of the Board, GSMA.

Since the release of the HTC Hero late in 2009 it has only received great feedback from its consumers and industry analysts in the mobile arena. The HTC Hero features a 528MHz Qualcomm processor as well as Wi-Fi, GPS, Bluetooth, HSPA, EDGE, and GSM and a 3.2″ capacitive touch screen. The best of all, this all runs on the new and fast growing popular Google Android OS.

HTC recently released some new Google Android phones into the market, be sure to check out the HTC Legend, the Hero’s bigger brother, and HTC Desire. I’m sure one of these handsets will be in line for the best mobile handset award next year aswell.

Recently I started working on my own project called TweSMS, the ideas was spawned by Rafiq Phillips after there was a demand for twitter users outside the US to receive their tweets via SMS.

After I started working on TweSMS I eventually saw the great potential there still is in the mobile market, especially in Africa. Think about it this way, how many people own a cellphone? Vodacom reported in their latest financial report that they have 40.5 million mobile users, now this is just Vodacom and what if you add MTN into the equation who dominates the African market. I would say we can look at a figure like 100 million mobile customers in Africa.

Now ask yourself the question, how many of them doesn’t have access to Internet? I would say 90% if not more. This just shows you how much potential there still is in the mobile market.

I am surely starting to shift my attention from web start-ups to mobile start-ups, or at least something that combines the two. In fact I already have plans for a new mobile service in the education arena that involves SMS messaging.

If you have plans or dreams to try and make it big, try shifting it towards the mobile market as there are still plenty of undiscovered opportunities in the market.

If you would like to stay up to date on whats happening in the Mobile Arena check out WebAddiCT(s);

I few weeks ago I started on a project called TweSMS, a twitter SMS notification system for people that does not have coverage with twitter’s own SMS notification system.

The project was inspired by Rafiq Phillips from Web AddiCT(s); and soon after that I started coding on basic functionality. Today I am proud to say that the system is improving immensely with every new feature being rolled out.

Yesterday saw the release of mention notifications as well as the ability to receive notifications from selected friends only. The changes has been implemented and the testers are testing away and giving feedback along the way.

Features to come include the ability to receive SMS messages only during certain times of the day as well as the ability to use your own Clickatell account to receive SMS messages.

If you are interested in partaking in the TweSMS testing send an email to TweSMS, there is a few places open still.

I have been putting blogging off for a couple of days due to my latest private project taking all my time. A while ago I read a message by Rafiq owner of Web AddiCT(s); where he asked if anybody was willing to write a Twitter notifications to SMS app.

After some investigation I found 2 current services of which one was closed down and the other one really expensive, almost R1 per sms. This lead me to investigating all the viable methods to send out sms messages from South Africa and having played with the twitter api before stared coding on some basic functionality.

I introduce to you TweSMS, TweSMS will allow you to receive SMS messages for different twitter notifications. Currently TweSMS only supports sending SMS messages for Twitter Direct Messages but will soon have functionality to be able to receive replies and even friend updates via SMS.

I am really proud of this project and would like to thank Web Addict(s); for the inspiration and support with this project aswell as Clickatell. I see big things in the pipeline for TweSMS and we are already testing away on the system.

For more info on TweSMS read the Web Addict(s); post, follow @twesms on twitter or visit www.twesms.com

Earlier this year Google announced Google Latitude, a service that lets you and your friends share your locations with each other. You control who gets to see your location and where on the map you appear to others. Today, Google is releasing Google Latitude for iPhone and iPod touch, available in the Safari browser.

Visit google.com/latitude from your device to start using Latitude. Add a bookmark to your home screen to quickly launch Latitude. Just open Latitude in Safari and tap the + icon > Add to Home Screen > Add. For more details, check out the Google Mobile Blog.

The video pretty much says it all

Any person out there can se how cellphones are revolusionizing our daily lives. Take the average person out there, well I can almost say take any person out there, they own a cellphone with access to the internet and it doensn’t matter where they are they will always reach for their cellphone to seek information. As a result mobile applications have become more and more popular helping people find all sorts of things from music, chatting to checking bank balances.

Google saw the growth of the mobile application industry and announced their beta version of Adsense for Mobile Applications. After all advertisers are always looking for ways to reach potential customers when they are engadged with mobile applications.

Google AdSense for Mobile Applications allows developers to earn revenue by displaying text and image ads in their iPhone and Android applications. For Google’s beta launch, they’ve created a site where developers can learn more about the AdSense for Mobile Applications program, see answers to frequently asked questions and sign up to participate in our beta. Advertisers can also learn about the benefits of advertising in mobile applications.

Check out this short video of Google AdSense for Mobile Applications.