Trust me, it's not about the touch screen.

Today the iPhone goes on sale and I'll admit that it looks pretty cool and futuristic and has lots of neat features. But I think the feature with the broadest impact on global cell phone culture will be mobile wi-fi calling. Pretty soon, free or very low cost wireless internet signals will be available in all the world's urban areas and what does that mean? You'll be able to use that internet signal to make free international phone calls. Through wi-fi enabled cell phones the entire planet will be connected for free.

Now I know that's a pretty bold statemen, but let me back it up. First of all, we already have wi-fi enabled phones (not only the iPhone) that allow us to make phone calls using the internet if we are near a wi-fi hotspot. The only problem is that we haven't reached the point where blanket wi-fi is available. There might be a hotspot at your local café or university, but not in your entire city.

That's going to change though, as cities like Paris are blazing a trail towards free city-wide wi-fi. Pretty soon you won't just be making free worldwide internet calls from Skype on your home computer. You'll be making free worldwide internet calls from your cell phone (and probably free SMS messaging too).

Also, while wi-fi phones are now way too expensive for most of the world's citizens, that will change too. Remember when color screens were a luxury feature? Now they're low-cost and standard. Remember when embedded cameras were a luxury feature? Now they're low-cost and standard. Wi-fi will also soon be accessible to the world's poor. In 2006 an estimated 2.7 billion people owned a cell phone worldwide and a whopping 80% of world's population had cell phone coverage. The access is already astounding and it will only grow with time.

So what does this mean for digital activism? What if the UN received 300 million SMS messages from around the world in support debt relief? What if MacDonalds Corporate Headquarters received 2 million phone calls in a single day by people saying they would boycott the chain unless they used recycled materials in their packaging? With free international communication, it will be much easier to organize centralized international pressure campaigns.

Unlike today's campaigns by the likes of Moveon and Avaaz, which rely on computer-based e-mail to direct the actions of supporters, campaigner of the future will be able to send free messages to wireless cell phones, thus inculding the massive demographic or cell phone owners who do not have access to computers. This means that digital activism action will not be a privilege of the rich but will be accessible to billions of the world's citizens.

Changing the participant demographic for activism will also change activism itself, since digital activists will not only come from the developed global north but also the global south. No doubt these new actors will bring new priorities to the world of digital activism. And when these new actors will have the power to participate, they will also have the power to change the world.

photo credit: high mountain