Facebook’s Plan to Conquer the World -- With Crappy Phones and Bad Networks

[Commentary] Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced a new Internet.org innovation lab where developers will be able to test the kinds of challenging connectivity conditions they might expect to find in the developing world -- without even leaving California.

For many people in the developing world, Facebook is the Internet. And while that may be somewhat true in America too, we Yanks can at least pull up the world’s leading social network on desktops and iPhones and Galaxy S4s with robust Internet connections, gorgeous screens and easy access to a reliable power grid. Meanwhile, in Africa and Asia and South America where Facebook is trying attract another 5 billion users, that technological sophistication is far from given. Facebook faces massive hurdles there that are just unknown here.