A hyperlocal mobile web for the next 3 billion users

Abstract

Despite increasing mobile Internet penetration in developing regions, growing web page complexity and the lack of optimization from remote content providers make the web experience poor in these areas. The high relative bandwidth cost, poor network performance, and lack of relevant local content combine to dampen the demand for the Internet and services it enables. In this paper we propose GAIUS, a content ecosystem enabling efficient creation and dissemination of locally relevant web content. At its core, GAIUS consists of the following innovations: a locally sustainable content ecosystem, and MAML, a web specification language that simplifies web pages to reduce costs and lower barriers for content creation.