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Google for India: Building India-first products and features
- neya 9y ago> Google Go, a new app from Google Search Sigh. Why do they pollute/confuse their existing products/projects? Go (Lang) was already difficult enough to search for on Google.
- reeteshv 9y agoMaybe, because the average Indian user has nothing to do with the programming language. However, s/he understands the word Go even if s/he is illiterate?
- netheril96 9y agoAnd the average Indian users will be confused even more than developers, when they search for "Google Go" only to receive results about Go language.
- enitihas 9y agoI don't think so. I frequently search for golang related issues, but even then when I search for 'Google go', the golang website is on number 6 and has no other mention on the first page at all. It is the programming language which suffers from poor discover ability. For an average non programming indian, golang might not feature on the first page at all.
- kkarakk 9y agothat kinda issue disappeared a couple of years ago when google started delivering targeted search results. an average user searching for google go will get google's product before any mention of the go language try it yourself, search for things you'd normally search for using an incognito unsigned into tab and you'll get wildly different search results than what you're used to as a developer/designer
- pjmlp 9y agoYou are forgetting Android Go as well.
- make3 9y agothat's not an actual problem here because the targets are completely different
- ocdtrekkie 9y agoAre you expecting no developers who reside in India who use Google's Go apps to ever also develop apps using Google's Go language? Can you imagine how difficult it will be for Google Go Search to decide which intent that person had when they search for a Go related topic?
- make3 9y agoI'm saying that it will be obvious which they are talking about from the context. I called my mom on Google Go. Probably not Golang, 99.9999999% of the time
- toast0 9y agoGoogle basically needs to name their apps starting with G or they will be hard to find in a sorted list; is it titled Google Xylophone or just Xylophone? Maybe I'll just use Marimba, I can always remember how to find that. When everything starts with G, it's easy to find.
- thisisit 9y ago> And Indians are using more data than ever before—4GB on average every month, projected to grow to 11GB per month in the next four years. Cheaper data through carrier innovation and greater access to public WiFi such as Google Station makes the richness of the internet more accessible to Indians. This has to be the worst PR news from Google I have ever read. For one, taking credit for something they have not delivered. Anyone and everyone in India will tell you the whole thing has to do with Reliance Jio and not much to do with Google wifi at all. Though given the cost of spectrum in India it remains to be seen if the data plans remain cheap. They have already increased from 309 for 3 months to 459 for 3 months ie more than 48% increase (surprisingly plans are still cheap compared to the old plans). Then it talks about Android Go, even though there is a full fledged release page. Tez already exists with it's own PR page. So, the only two things are: > The Google Assistant for the JioPhone Even after reading twice I don't understand what is special about this other than the carrier branding. > Two-wheeler mode in Google Maps comes to India first This looks promising though with even bigger risk than the general maps. So kudos, I guess?
- matt4077 9y agoNowhere is Google claiming to be responsible for increased internet access in India. It is merely making the point that the country is an important market going forward.
- sharpercoder 9y ago> For one, taking credit for something they have not delivered. I don't read it in that statement. I read it as a factual representation of the current state of the internet in India. Why do you interpret this as "taking credit"?
- gnufied 9y agoI am wondering how does one uses Google maps while driving a two wheeler. I have driven a Yamaha in India for years and juggling a phone definitely seems risky.
- godzilla82 9y agoGet a snug helmet and put your phone inside against your cheek!
- TulliusCicero 9y agoThere's lots of smartphone holders for bikes, I imagine there are some for "two-wheelers" as well. I also imagine that many people riding two-wheelers in India are just driving dangerously.
- sandGorgon 9y agoVoice directions. Remember that they are coupling this with landmark based navigation
- midoreigh 9y agoThere are lots of food delivery guys riding bike using mobile navigation. They use mobile holders.
- wruza 9y agoSometimes I think twice before naming our company’s projects since one may do it one day. My observation from news is that first letter is fundamental; I wouldn’t name anything starting with G. Google is world brand indeed, but the name itself feels so ugl^W unnatural to me. Now they’re locked into that Goo-gl thing. Why do brands reuse naming schemes for new projects? If you can do the best, integrate and adrertise, isn’t it better to drop pr weight and start over with completely new names?
- technofiend 9y agoAre you saying you're having trouble distinguishing between Google Great, Google Good, Google Gumballs and Google Great GoogleyMoogley? I thought the differences were obvious! /s
- kkarakk 9y agothey have rebranded - alphabet is the overlord brand and google is the search part of the business.google go is a natural evolution just like google assistant is a great name for a natural language assistant that leverages google search
- viswanathk 9y agoData in India is really cheap. You pay <$7 for 30GB of data and the speed is not bad at all (about 20-30Mbps)!
- sharpercoder 9y agoIs this country-wide or only at limited areas?
- metahost 9y agoThe prices posted by OP seem to be referring to the carrier Reliance Jio. Their network speeds were great initially(20-30mbps when other carriers we're hardly at 5-10mbps). The speeds have deteriorated significantly now. The network seems to be reeling under the load of it's huge user base.
- eklavya 9y agoIt depends on the area, I have used it in multiple cities and except one location (problem with all networks there) all else was good. There is an option in the jio app to register complaint about slow network, I have had some luck with that.
- blntechie 9y agoJio is actually faster outside cities as experienced by me.
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- sokz 9y agoThe 20-30 Mbps speeds are restricted to some areas. Urban areas such as Bangalore, Mumbai and Hyderabad enjoy great speeds in broadband as well but for the majority of indians, reasonably fast and cheap internet connectivity means Jio. Also, the 20-30 Mbps speeds are not the norm outside certain areas but they have been able to cover a reasonably large part of the entire country.
- 9y ago
- dmitriid 9y ago> Tez has processed over 140 million transactions from nearly 12 million active users. There are more than 525,000 merchants already on Tez, using it to take payments, pay their suppliers or transfer money to employees. Add to that the insane scale of AliBaba (with AliExpress) and WeChat who together process over a trillion dollars yearly. India and South-East Asia have an insane number of people. Not to beat a yet-alive horse, I'd love to see bitcoin (and other cryptocurrency) proponents tell the world how they are going to deal with that.
- TheAdamAndChe 9y ago> I'd love to see bitcoin (and other cryptocurrency) proponents tell the world how they are going to deal with that. The price of cryptocurrencies are a function of supply and demand. A very large number of people wanting to get bitcoins combined with a limited number of bitcoins means the price would go up.
- dmitriid 9y agoI’m not talking about price. I’m talking about scale
- kkarakk 9y agocrypto scales with need - the number of nodes are increased and the blockchain balloons in size to keep up, just like regular banking transactions do. plus the core devs are very aware of scaling issues - since it's mentioned every time financial crypto is brought up hardware is cheap, why would crypto scaling be an issue?
- dmitriid 9y ago> hardware is cheap, why would crypto scaling be an issue? Because the algorithms governing crypto may not be scalable. Case in point: a simple game of CryptoKittens basically crippled Ethereum: - Etherscan has reported a sixfold increase in pending transactions on Ethereum since the game's release, by the Axiom Zen innovation studio, on 28 November - CryptoKitties has become so popular that it's taking up a significant amount of available space for transactions on the Ethereum platform - the CryptoKitties game accounts for over 10% of network traffic on Ethereum. As traffic increases, transactions become more expensive to execute quickly. All this for a number of transactions that wouldn't even register on the radar of ... well ... any of the "more traditional" paying systems (including the pay apps like Tez, AliPay, WeChat etc.)
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- TheAdamAndChe 9y agoThis is a smart move for Google. There's a large market in India that isn't being used by them currently, so if they can catch that market, they'll definitely benefit from it. I do find it interesting, though, that "India-first" features are being praised by most here, while "America-first" features would probably be looked down upon by most here as well. What do you think causes the different reactions between the two?
- maged 9y agoLiterally every other Google product is America-first, just no need to market it as such.
- TheAdamAndChe 9y agoIf there's no need to market a product as America-first, then why is there a need to market these as India-first? Like they said in the article, the products made won't just help India.
- ocdtrekkie 9y agoBecause Google is trying to build the monopoly they have in America in India as well. They are specifically targeting the market they hope to gain capture in. A lot of users may prefer a locally-branded competitor because they feel it is properly tailored to their needs and culture. (I've specifically heard Yandex understands the interests and needs of Russian-speaking users better than Google, which is not a shock.) Presumably, specifying "India-first" is intended to convey that these apps are developed specifically for Indian users and their needs.
- TheAdamAndChe 9y ago> Presumably, specifying "India-first" is intended to convey that these apps are developed specifically for Indian users and their needs. Oh, I understand this completely. It makes perfect sense for Google to focus on an emerging market to become a monopoly there, and I feel it's a fantastic strategy. What I'm more curious about is why an Indian-first focus is met with fanfare and acceptance, while an American-first focus is met with derision and contempt against something anti-globalist, and that these two opinions often come from the same group of people. I just find it an interesting dichotomy.
- krisgenre 9y agoTez had excellent marketing. Every time you referred a friend, you and your friend got Rs. 51 (less than $1). Every time you transacted (some min. amount) they gave out scratch cards. In my circle even those who were skeptical initially gave in to the temptation.
- kkarakk 9y agothat's not excellent for india, that's standard. nearly every service over there gives out free money as standard SOP since indians love deals. did i say love? i meant they will literally use your service even if it never delivers 75percent of the time as long as you give them a good deal. they'll complain but they'll use it. however also demonstrated that indian users will jump shit asap to the competitor offering the better deal so retention is really really really hard in india
- dingdongding 9y agoRemember Android One program? Google has commitment issues to their products/programs
- nkskalyan 9y agoMi A1 was released in September http://www.mi.com/in/mi-a1/ http://www.mi.com/in/mi-a1/