Facebook's Zuckerberg has global ambitions for free app

Facebook Inc Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg launched a free Internet application in Colombia on Wednesday as part of a drive to bring developing markets online.

Colombia is the first nation in Latin America and the fourth in the world to receive the new Internet.org service, in partnership with local mobile phone provider Tigo. The aim is to push the app globally, Zuckerberg told Reuters.

The mobile app, aimed at low income and rural users, offers more than a dozen tools via the Android operating system - like encyclopedia Wikipedia, weather websites, job listings and health information, as well as Facebook's own social network and messaging service - without the user incurring any data charges. It has already been launched in three countries in Africa, including Zambia.

During his first trip to Bogota, the billionaire founder of Facebook said the app would spread quickly as phone operators reap the benefits of increased revenue from new customers using the services.

"Our goal is to make the Internet.org program available across the world and to help everyone get connected to the Internet," Zuckerberg said. "We're going to look back a year from now and there will hopefully be a lot more countries that have programs like this."

Although he declined to say where the program would be launched next, he is betting that the application will soon be the "default" among mobile operators worldwide to expand Internet access. Those not offering the service will be "lagging" behind, he said.

It will no longer be the case "that only the most visionary and forward-leaning operators want to start doing it," said Zuckerberg, dressed in his trademark jeans and gray T-shirt.

He would not comment on whether recent time spent in Mexico City with telecom billionaire Carlos Slim would result in a similar Internet.org project, or some other venture.

"I'm not going to say anything specific about any partnership that's not final; but, I mean, we're going to want to work with folks across the world on a number of things," he said.

He said the next launch of Internet.org could be as soon as six months.

The 30-year-old Harvard dropout met Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos earlier on Wednesday, and the two officially launched the Internet.org application at the presidential palace.