You could perhaps look at "developing" in terms of economic growth - most "developed" countries have relatively low growth as their economies are mature. That'

You could perhaps look at "developing" in terms of economic growth - most "developed" countries have relatively low growth as their economies are mature. That's not to say that all countries with low growth have mature economies of course, just that "developed" countries are at the economic forefront, and that "developing" countries need to make an effort to catch up or be forever "developing". In terms that most people could understand "rich" and "poor" may be more accurate, but in terms of cell phone usage there are quite a few African countries that have widespread mobile phone networks, but few wired telephones. You could perhaps come to think that the above sort of labels are very generic, but I do think that for a start that talk of a third world/first world split is not useful when the second world - communist russia and its ilk - doesn't exist anymore.