GOOGLE UPBEAT ON INDIA
Looks to bring people ‘online’ with new features
Betting big on the ‘Next Billion Users’, search giant Google on Monday announced five new products specifically tailored for the world’s second-largest internet market.
So there’s YouTube Go, a new app, which will function even when there is poor connectivity ; the Google Assistant in Hindi inside messaging app Allo; Google Station, a platform to roll out Wi-Fi hotspots in places of people congregation such as malls, cafes and universities; data-saving features in its Chrome mobile browser; and faster browsing for Google Play on 2G connections.
The features will be launched soon, the company said.
India is one of the fastest-growing markets for internet usage. The user base, driven primarily by booming smartphone adoption, is pegged to grow from 350 million to 650 million by 2020.
The internet giant has outlined three areas on which the company was working to provide connectivity — access (connecting people to the internet), platforms (letting people and developers share and build upon the internet), and products (providing better and more relevant Google experiences for Indians).
“Our goal has not just been to help more Indians get online — but also to help Indians create the online experience they want... with products that work for any level of connectivity, in local Indian languages, and across the devices most frequently used in India,” said Caesar Sengupta, who heads Google’s Next Billion Users initiative.
Google has already partnered with RailTel to provide free wi-fi across railway stations. Project RailWire currently provides free wi-fi in 40 stations, catering to 3.5 million monthly users. The target is to reach 400 stations by 2017.
“Every three seconds an Indian is going online for the first time and the Station initiative is targeted at helping more users go online,” Sengupta said.
He also announced fast browsing in Google Play for people on 2G and other low-bandwidth connections. When an user on a lowbandwidth connection chooses to install an app, Google Play will offer a new “Wait for Wi-Fi” option, where the app will only install when the phone connects next time to the wi-fi.
On YouTube Go, Johanna Wright, YouTube vice-president for product management, said: “It allows users to save and watch videos even in poor connectivity, and gives them transparency and control over how much data they consume on videos, allowing them to preview videos first and choose the video’s file size before they save it offline to watch later. They can also share videos easily, without using any data at all.”
On the cards is also something called a Google Accelerator, a book-shaped device containing the top 100,000 videos on YouTube. The company plans to place them in cafes, restaurants and other public places to help people directly stream from the box.
YouTube currently offers an offline feature under which users can download video over wi-fi to view them later.
Google also made incremental changes to its Chrome browser to make user experience better on slow networks. “Data saver mode — which reduces the amount of data Chrome uses on Android mobile devices, computers, and Chromebooks — will now support MP4 videos, saving up to 67% of video data,” said Rahul RoyChowdhury, vice-president, product management, Chrome.
The company also said that it was going to launch the Google Assistant on Allo in Hindi by the end of the year.