Google's view of the importance of English in India

[Rubber Duck]

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/infotech/internet/Google-Microsoft-focus-on-regional-languages/articleshow/6242139.cms


NEW DELHI: As you enter the Google office in Gurgaon, you are drawn by the overwhelming smell of fresh ground coffee. It’s Thursday, yet employeesGoogle's
are moving around in jeans and tees.

But before skeptics start frowning at such apparent manifestation of Western culture, the 30-something product manager of Google India, Jagjit Chawla, quips: “We are gearing up to benefit for the next big thing—the Indic Web.”

He explains: “Only 7% of the Indian population knows English and only 7% uses the Internet. There is very little content available in the local languages. The next wave of Internet users will be from Indic web.”

So big is the opportunity in the local languages sphere, almost all infotech companies worth their name have jumped the bandwagon. When just a couple of weeks ago, India heralded the new symbol for the rupee, it wasn’t just an emphatic assertion about the Indian economy having arrived on the global stage, it was also seen as a symbol of the coming of age of the Indian language script in a modern avatar.

[bwhhisc]

now if they can just get some paying advertisers for those Hindi pages :)

[domainguru]

of course we all know it will happen. The only question is "when"? The implication being that everyone in India that can speak English is online already, and basically nobody else .... that would explain the search numbers for Hindi terms ;-)

Maybe it will happen quickly ... but I don't believe any longer in the "just takes one big firm and everything will snowball" - life ain't that easy. I believe it will be a long, hard slog, no matter how many people start surfing on their mobiles.

[Rubber Duck]

of course we all know it will happen. The only question is "when"? The implication being that everyone in India that can speak English is online already, and basically nobody else .... that would explain the search numbers for Hindi terms ;-)

Maybe it will happen quickly ... but I don't believe any longer in the "just takes one big firm and everything will snowball" - life ain't that easy. I believe it will be a long, hard slog, no matter how many people start surfing on their mobiles.

Sorry, but there is substantial traffic, just very little revenue.

[blastfromthepast]

Waiting for the other 93% to click through.

[domainguru]

Sorry, but there is substantial traffic, just very little revenue.

And what use is traffic without revenue?

[Rubber Duck]

And what use is traffic without revenue?

If I had taken that attitude, I wouldn't have anything in any language. And nor incidentally would you.

[domainguru]

If I had taken that attitude, I wouldn't have anything in any language. And nor incidentally would you.

Not really. The whole domain game, from whatever angle you approach it, is based on visitors, however they arrive at your domain / site, being worth money to a site owner / advertisers. If that isn't the case, the visitors might as well be from Mars, the whole value chain falls apart.

[Rubber Duck]

Not really. The whole domain game, from whatever angle you approach it, is based on visitors, however they arrive at your domain / site, being worth money to a site owner / advertisers. If that isn't the case, the visitors might as well be from Mars, the whole value chain falls apart.

This has been a journey of faith in all languages. Some are now functional other not yet. When we started investing in Arabic, Google didn't even index it. So if we had been relying on instant revenue, we would have bought nothing. If you still believe that to have been a good strategy, then we best end this discussion right here.