Depending on how I access the mobile internet - via a downloaded app like gmail or mobizines, direct through opera mini or various links within the t-mobile/nokia operating system, I get taken to a different browser and I have no control over which one I get directed to.

Equally, I don’t necessarily want google as my home page either.

A major factor here may be that http://mobile.google.com gives the option of setting Google as one’s home page in the phone’s web browser. That’s what I’ve done.

Launching my browser on Sprint’s network, provides me with a list of Goog services:

Search
Maps (download java app)
Gmail (download java app)
Calendar
SMS
News
Photos
Blogger
Reader
Goog411;

instead of the operator portal. There is a link here for other countries including the UK. You might want to give it a try for the sake of experimentation.

And let me point out that this M:metrics data snack doesn’t claim to reflect overall usage, but only for smartphone users.

Give it a whirl. I find the access to Google Reader on my phone especially helpful for those brief moments when I can sneak in a quick check-in with the blogosphere.

I tend to be influenced by the characteristic pointed out by Denmark Kilo, “surfing the operator portal in the UK is free.” Free is a pretty powerful behavior shaper.

I’m a t-mobile customer on web ‘n walk in the UK so I have the opera browser downloaded as part of that package. As soon as you click on the browser button to actively access the internet, t-mobile’s home page comes up as default.

If I use Opera Mini (which I installed myself), I don’t get any home page at all and I have to either click on one of my bookmarks or enter a URL to get to a page. I don’t know how many folks are interested enough to have downloaded Opera Mini unless they’re working in the industry or are geeky? So the status quo is to use the pre-installed settings which afford you one-click mobile web access.

So I’m not sure that these statistics are reflective of overall usage and could be highly skewed. I’d like m:metrics to explain more fully what exactly they’re measuring. And maybe for something like mobile web usage, they need a bigger sample size than 500 or so smartphone customers for it to be truly representative.

According to the training I’ve recieved, there’s going to be more of an attempt to get people to look at other sites, such as mySpace, Youtube, et al. Heck, there’s even the “Google Enhanced” search box when you go into Live! as well. I’m doubtful that many would do such a thing, considering I can walk into an internet cafe and spend 30-40 minutes surfing the net properly for the same cost as a single megabyte’s worth of data transfer.

Oh, and just to make things more fun, some clever person decided to do something about normal websites. Namely attempting to render them in such a way on the phone that people can actually see things semi-properly. A move away from the mobile specific pages.
Thankfully no-one’s asked me about that yet. I still don’t quite get it myself…

The know-how problem is a chicken and egg question, yes? There has to be a compelling reason for people to need to know how to leave. And in addition, leaving has to be as easy as getting onto the portal. Certainly, that has been the case for the evolution of the Internets.

Vodafone changed their data charges recently, based on data usage. You’re looking around the £2 mark per megabyte of data transfer for PAYT users, no matter where you go (Vodafone Live! or the internet itself). Before the recent change, VF Live! was free to browse, but going out of Live! was charged at data rates. Of £7.50 per megabyte.
So yes, before the recent changes, you could access the internet itself. But you got kneecapped for it. So, people didn’t.

Also, from my own personal experience of dealing with PrePay customers, I don’t think many of them actually know HOW to leave the walled garden that is Live in the first place.
Why do I know?

Just… …trust me on that.

Really.