Comments on: Local Content For Indian Internet Growth http://gigaom.com/2006/08/17/local-content-for-indian-internet-growth/ Sat, 11 Feb 2012 00:50:04 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: ritika http://gigaom.com/2006/08/17/local-content-for-indian-internet-growth/#comment-273738 Sat, 11 Sep 2010 16:58:56 +0000 http://gigaom.wordpress.com/2006/08/17/local-content-for-indian-internet-growth/#comment-273738 Before launching burrp!, local language content is something we thought of as well. The one thing everyone should keep in mind is that different internet products in India will have different audiences. I think a good portion of Indian net users are still constrained by what the Indian net has meant to them: thus far, everything-in-one portals such as Rediff and Sify. We are moving towards an age of providing quality niche content to users, and if the context is such like ours (entertainment, lifestyle, recreational activities), then it may not make sense to have local language versions. There will certainly be some niches where it will absolutely make sense to provide content in local languages.

]]> By: Mehul Patel http://gigaom.com/2006/08/17/local-content-for-indian-internet-growth/#comment-122512 Mon, 09 Apr 2007 11:39:26 +0000 http://gigaom.wordpress.com/2006/08/17/local-content-for-indian-internet-growth/#comment-122512 Has anyone seen

http://IndyChai.com/

its like entire India Web 2.0 on a single page :)

Awesome

]]> By: Shankar http://gigaom.com/2006/08/17/local-content-for-indian-internet-growth/#comment-122511 Tue, 06 Mar 2007 22:15:20 +0000 http://gigaom.wordpress.com/2006/08/17/local-content-for-indian-internet-growth/#comment-122511 Hi, Recently I was in Chennai Proto.in and came across several Web 2.0 applications. One particular application which is revelant to this post is http://bu.llet.in — The basis of Bu.llet.in is organizing local content and they have gone to extent of attaching Organization Name / City Name / Country Name to the posting so that its easily sortable and people can connect. So yeah, localization is needed.

]]> By: Sadath http://gigaom.com/2006/08/17/local-content-for-indian-internet-growth/#comment-122510 Wed, 13 Dec 2006 11:08:03 +0000 http://gigaom.wordpress.com/2006/08/17/local-content-for-indian-internet-growth/#comment-122510 Its true that a recent trend of regional content is preferred by more and more Internet users. The other portal that has been addressing the southern area is http://www.oneindia.in, they have a hughly popular network of portals in languages such as Tamil (www.thatstamil.com), Telugu (www.thatstelugu.com), Kannada (www.thatskannada.com), Malayalam (www.thatsmalayalam.com)

]]> By: shyam http://gigaom.com/2006/08/17/local-content-for-indian-internet-growth/#comment-122509 Wed, 29 Nov 2006 13:27:51 +0000 http://gigaom.wordpress.com/2006/08/17/local-content-for-indian-internet-growth/#comment-122509 Interesting..last year during we, some journos of tamilnadu launched shyamradio.com, an online radio which is a huge hit..then we followed it by shyamradioplus, a direct server genre radio..now we are testing shyamtv, online television..if we increase local content in web, definitely it will improve

]]> By: sujay http://gigaom.com/2006/08/17/local-content-for-indian-internet-growth/#comment-122508 Sat, 30 Sep 2006 00:58:55 +0000 http://gigaom.wordpress.com/2006/08/17/local-content-for-indian-internet-growth/#comment-122508 Direcway.cc is a provider of satellite internet, HughesNet service, broadband satellite internet, internet satellite service, high speed satellite internet access, broadband internet solutions and specializes in providing satelite internet service for home and commercial consumers throughout North American region

]]> By: Manish Upadhyay http://gigaom.com/2006/08/17/local-content-for-indian-internet-growth/#comment-122507 Tue, 29 Aug 2006 16:40:47 +0000 http://gigaom.wordpress.com/2006/08/17/local-content-for-indian-internet-growth/#comment-122507 Well i’m feeling good after got this information about india in web world…

but the things we need to be worry is the language problem n this is creating an obstacle for india to be no.1 in web world.
I believe apart from lacking english knowledge in our people ,lacking awareness about the internet is also a big issue here.i strongly believe billions of people in india good in english.but they don’t know about the internet world.They don’t know the potential of internet technology.how it can change their living world
in just one click.we must spread awarenes among the people about the internet.how u can freely chat with other world ur concerned people.How internet can help us in study,finding online help,gor eg. about the colleges,university,about the covt institution etc.I hope u people understand what i’m trying to say.

]]> By: Deap Ubhi http://gigaom.com/2006/08/17/local-content-for-indian-internet-growth/#comment-122506 Tue, 22 Aug 2006 14:13:40 +0000 http://gigaom.wordpress.com/2006/08/17/local-content-for-indian-internet-growth/#comment-122506 Before launching burrp!, local language content is something we thought of as well. The one thing everyone should keep in mind is that different internet products in India will have different audiences. I think a good portion of Indian net users are still constrained by what the Indian net has meant to them: thus far, everything-in-one portals such as Rediff and Sify. We are moving towards an age of providing quality niche content to users, and if the context is such like ours (entertainment, lifestyle, recreational activities), then it may not make sense to have local language versions. There will certainly be some niches where it will absolutely make sense to provide content in local languages.

]]> By: Sunil http://gigaom.com/2006/08/17/local-content-for-indian-internet-growth/#comment-122505 Sat, 19 Aug 2006 08:46:37 +0000 http://gigaom.wordpress.com/2006/08/17/local-content-for-indian-internet-growth/#comment-122505 May be one day Indian languages will get their due on internet! I do hope so. Writings and writers in Indian languages are looked down at by English speaking media, but increasing market might of small towners, perhaps that will change. Unicode fonts for Indian languages that you can search on engines like Google are increwasing everyday. Take a look at Narad, the Desipundit of Hindi blogs just to get an idea of richness Hindi bloggers (you will also find links for learning writing in Devnagari Unicode) at
http://akshargram.com/narad/

]]> By: Sunil http://gigaom.com/2006/08/17/local-content-for-indian-internet-growth/#comment-122504 Sat, 19 Aug 2006 00:46:21 +0000 http://gigaom.wordpress.com/2006/08/17/local-content-for-indian-internet-growth/#comment-122504 A very good post.

I had a perhaps related article (about the use of Indian languages in Wikipedia, which I’d wanted to use as a measure of internet useage in india) earlier. You might enjoy reading it: http://balancinglife.blogspot.com/2006/04/reach-of-wiki.html

Part of the reason that this may not take off though is that (at least in my observations) people believe “educated” = “english”, and so tend to be driven to using english more in most technology driven applications. I don’t like it, and I don’t think it should be that way, but it is.

]]> By: Ravi Venkatraman http://gigaom.com/2006/08/17/local-content-for-indian-internet-growth/#comment-122503 Fri, 18 Aug 2006 18:39:57 +0000 http://gigaom.wordpress.com/2006/08/17/local-content-for-indian-internet-growth/#comment-122503 There are many Indian Language news site on the web, most do not use unicode encoding. The current search engine like Google, MSN and Yahoo only index regional pages encoded using unicode encoding.
Most users in India still use Windows 95/98 . Unicode is not supported on these OS and the Regional sites don’t want to convert to unicode.
Check the top 100 sites visited from India
http://www.alexa.com/site/ds/topsites?cc=IN&tsmode=country&lang=none

We have made an attempt to provide Transliteration search interface using Google API & ILC.
http://www.Hindi.co.in
http://www.Tamil.co.in
http://www.Gujarati.co.in etc…

On another note, even though IDN (International Domain Names) have been around for years, we do not see any live Indian IDN sites.

We also plan to aggregate the Hindi Blog available in the net at
http://www.xn--61bkd4jc9f.com (www.चिट्ठा.com)
http://www.xn--31b5bs1i.com (www.ब्लग.com)

]]> By: Deep http://gigaom.com/2006/08/17/local-content-for-indian-internet-growth/#comment-122502 Fri, 18 Aug 2006 18:07:29 +0000 http://gigaom.wordpress.com/2006/08/17/local-content-for-indian-internet-growth/#comment-122502 Thats Good News..

I will love reading and writing of blogs in Hindi even though i stay in big city and do my all work in English only.

i hope someone is thinking or coding somewhere for this puepose also.

]]> By: Mehul Patel http://gigaom.com/2006/08/17/local-content-for-indian-internet-growth/#comment-122501 Fri, 18 Aug 2006 13:13:36 +0000 http://gigaom.wordpress.com/2006/08/17/local-content-for-indian-internet-growth/#comment-122501 Two very Imp URL’s for getting accurate stats on Mobile and Internet users and other data in India:

http://www.coai.in/
http://www.iamai.in/

Further IAMAI numbers are quite accurate, there is a massive boom in India online more and more people are buying movie tickets, air tickets, travel pacakages, railway tickets, paying bills online this numbers are uncontrollable as its very comfortable to do so, this is again supported by Credit Card firms who are offering Credit Cards each and every Indian!

–
Regards,
Mehul Patel
MD & CEO
KIPL.Net – Digital Services
URL: http://www.KIPL.Net
Email: mehul@kipl.net

http://www.mozomo.com – Coming soon to a WAP Browser near you :)

‘e–magination is more important then knowledge’

]]> By: Devendra http://gigaom.com/2006/08/17/local-content-for-indian-internet-growth/#comment-122500 Fri, 18 Aug 2006 09:04:39 +0000 http://gigaom.wordpress.com/2006/08/17/local-content-for-indian-internet-growth/#comment-122500 We launched an Indian facing publication – http://www.BollywoodBlog.com/ – in Mumbai last month and we thought through the issues of localising content, however, the consensus was that although people read local languages in print and watch programs in local languages, most people use English on the net as it is easier and more convenient than using local languages.

Of couse our poll could have been biased towards the digital cognoscenti in Mumbai and Maharashtra rather than smaller towns and villages where most of the population reside, however, I think for now all our publications for the Indian market will be in English.

]]> By: Anonymous http://gigaom.com/2006/08/17/local-content-for-indian-internet-growth/#comment-122499 Fri, 18 Aug 2006 07:44:31 +0000 http://gigaom.wordpress.com/2006/08/17/local-content-for-indian-internet-growth/#comment-122499 well written article.
I agree so far it was mainly educated folks using internet. If it needs to expand beyond that , content language and the content should be local which is not easy to implement.All the content on CNN is waste for a vilager in India but if euuivalent is provided in Hindi/native lang, it may be bit more interesting.What would be more interesting to him would be – local news,issues,politics etc., in local language.

There is another class between villagers and educated with internet connection. That is semi-educated/educated but no access to internet.They just need more easy access to internet this is what local iSP’s are targetting but more needs to be doneThey dont mind english content.

]]> By: Vignesh Ravi http://gigaom.com/2006/08/17/local-content-for-indian-internet-growth/#comment-122498 Fri, 18 Aug 2006 07:35:20 +0000 http://gigaom.wordpress.com/2006/08/17/local-content-for-indian-internet-growth/#comment-122498 I think there is the internet revolution is yet to happen in India, like the way it has happened with cell phones and cable tv. While its common to see everone from auto drivers to senior citizens with cellphones, you will rarely find an auto driver who visits a cyber cafe to check his email. This has to do with opportunity cost involved in spending time in cyber cafes and most importantly the lack of services to target a large part of India. I think if the cell phone companies position themselves correctly, a lot of people could end up accessing the internet through their cellphones.

In the rural areas, as OM correctly points out, there needs to be relevant content in local languages. (price of crops for farmers, weather conditions for fisherman etc). I think the relevant content has to be in place before we can see use of the internet relevant in rural India

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