Globalization of the Internet is moving into a new phase. Today we can observe the emergence of the "next billion" of users who prefer video text, images and voice commands in communication. About what this audience is, and how IT-giants plan to adapt to it, tried to find out The Wall Street Journal.
A new wave of mobile users is the population of developing countries. These are poorly educated users who get access to the network thanks to affordable smartphones, the same affordable tariffs and extremely understandable interfaces of services and applications.
"We're witnessing the emergence of a new type of Internet user," said Cesar Sengupta, Team Leader of Google, who is working on solutions for these users. - "The next billion" is very different from the first ".
The Wall Street Journal has shared the story of the 38-year-old Indian Megha Singh, who is a typical representative of the new wave. Singh works as a porter at the train station in New Delhi and earns less than $ 8 a day. He has a phone with which he regularly uses Internet services, but the model of his behavior on the network is different from the traditional one - Singh does not read or print text.
"We do not know anything about emails and how to send them," says Singh.. "But we use the Internet to the fullest extent".
Nevertheless, this does not prevent the 38-year-old Indian from checking the arrival time of trains, exchanging voice messages with his family in WhatsApp and watching the video on YouTube. Thanks to free Wi-Fi at the station, he downloads about 20 videos per day via the MX Player, and then watches them at home.
India and Brazil have become the main markets for the WhatsApp messenger. As vice-president of the service Nirazh Arora reports, even at early stages the team managed to see the prospects of service promotion in emerging markets. Employees of the company went to India and other countries and brought bags with various smartphones to make sure that the messenger will work well on them. Facebook, the owner of WhatsApp, is also developing the Internet in India, sponsoring the installation of points with free Wi-Fi.
Meanwhile, Google has adapted the issuance of certain searches of its search engine for local residents.
Due to this in the results of requests, pictures and videos become priority, and not a list of links.
Browser UC Browser from Chinese holding Alibaba Group managed to get more than 40% of the market in India. And all because the browser can save mobile traffic with a slow Internet.
"Today the way to the Internet begins with social chats, with YouTube and entertainment applications," comments Sandeep Kataria, commercial director of Vodafone India. "Five years ago there was a completely different picture".