1.7 Billion Mobile Web Users by 2013

A new report by Juniper Research estimates that the number of people getting their dose of Web 2.0 from mobile devices will reach 1.7 billion by the year 2013, which would mean roughly one in every four people on the planet would be able to connect through their smartphone.

Couple this with the death of mobile websites, and there's substantial growth potential waiting right around the corner. And the websites that will really cash in are the ones that get on board with Mobile 2.0 by integrating mobile advantages such as GPS into their services.

The loser: Microsoft. With mobile web browsers like Safari, Opera and the upcoming Skyfire browser providing access to rich websites, the mobile version of Internet Explorer is looking more and more like a dinosaur. Considering the proprietary nature of the Internet Explorer browser, we might see websites in the future drop support for it in much the same way that we saw some websites require IE in the recent past.