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World Wide Words

From the Turns of Phrase section

M-commerce

We’ve only just got used to lots of new forms beginning in e- but now m- is starting to turn up — for mobile. The advent of WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) and new systems for sending data to and from mobile telephones at high speeds means that Web-style electronic commerce seems set to become available soon at a mobile phone near your ear. It may look a very new term — and references to it in the press have only really begun to accumulate since the middle of 1999 — but it has been recorded as far back as the mid nineties.

For all its hype, however, m-commerce remains in its infancy.

International Herald Tribune, Feb. 2000

Business is moving quickly on m-commerce for a number of reasons.

Toronto Star, Mar. 2000

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