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The mobile Web as a global phenomenon. The ubiquity of the mobile phone makes it the ideal platform for many people to access the Web. The demand is there. As we saw in our previous report on Africa, many countries experienced triple-digit or even quadruple-digit usage growth in 2008.

Here are some highlights from this month's State of the Mobile Web report:

• Usage, page views and data transfers rose again this month; 21 million users viewed 5 billion pages in October 2008.

• Egypt, which debuted last month by knocking Germany off the list, continues to take the top 10 by storm, surging ahead of both the United Kingdom and Poland in terms of unique users of Opera Mini.

• This month's geographic focus is on Southeast Asia, where we see Google as the dominant player in the search engine space and Friendster as the premier social-networking site, with hi5 coming in second. Nokia is dominant in the region, with brands like Sony Ericsson and Huawei competing for a distant second place.

Read the full report.

Opera Mini 4.2 beta has been out for three days, so everyone has had a chance to put the little browser to the test. Now, we want to hear your opinion, specifically on one of the main new features: The six new skins!

So, here's your chance to let us know what you think. The following poll asks you to select which of the skins looks best. And please, tell us why you feel the way you do. You are helping us make Opera Mini better through your feedback.

Also, if you’re feeling creative, please include a link to an image of your own ideas of Opera Mini skins.

This is cool (and a bit weird). Microsoft promotes Opera Mini on their MSN mobile portal. We like! They even state that:

And the best news is that it is free. Hell, who PAYS for internet browsers anyway!?

Well... People who use Windows?