The Hindu Business Line : Google rolls out ‘Internet Bus’

Chennai, Feb.3 Google India has launched an Internet Bus, a mobile campaign aimed to reach out to people in tier II and III towns with limited knowledge and exposure to the Internet. The mobile bus is designed to provide an Internet experience to the people and will cover 15 towns in Tamil Nadu in the next 45 days.

In addition to providing basic familiarisation on using services such as search, e-mail, social networking and online maps, the bus will showcase how the Internet can make everyday life simple, according to Dr Prasad Ram, Head of Google R&D, India.

Focus on 4 themes

With focus on four themes — information, communication, entertainment and education — the Internet Bus will have content in English and Tamil to give users an understanding of how the Internet can be used for all these needs.

The initiative is part of Google India’s exercise to learn from users on their requirement. “There can be no better way than to directly interact with people. We need to engage directly to build better and relevant products for end users,” Dr Ram told newspersons.

Why TN was chosen

Why Tamil Nadu for the launch? Dr Ram said 19 per cent of the total content on the Web in India was in Tamil (next only to Hindi, which is a few decimal points ahead of Tamil). There is a strong expatriate Tamil community that is active on the Internet. Out of the 45 million Internet users in India there is a deep interest among Tamilians to access and create content, blog, and also capture local content, he said.

The bus is designed to make the introduction of the Internet simple for a user. The message will be shared through videos that talk about how people are using the Internet for varied reasons and activities: For instance, grandparents using e-mail and video sites to interact with children in another city; a student from a small city using search to find information that is not otherwise physically accessible and a local music group using YouTube to share their talent with the world, he said.

Sharing feedback

Dr Ram said the company would consider sharing some of the feedback from the campaign with the State Government. Google, which organises information from all over the world and makes it accessible for Internet browsers, would also look at taking the mobile campaign to other States.

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