I think this says something to Facebook, Google, MySpace, and web giants facing this problem in general. It's time they gave some attention to these countries a

I think this says something to Facebook, Google, MySpace, and web giants facing this problem in general. It's time they gave some attention to these countries and started pushing to raise awareness about online ads over there. These companies have the reach and brand name recognition to at least start the ball rolling. I am from Saudi Arabia, which I'm pretty sure has these same issue. The relevance of Arabic online ads over here (even Google's) is far from where it is in the west and in English. That could have something to do with the low number of online ads, which I attribute to: 1) Most advertisers still do not appreciate the benefits of online ads 2) The advertising industry in general is a lot less mature than in the west. A friend of mine is an editor of an tech magazine in Arabic (which are rare) and also maintains a popular Arabic blog on entrepreneurship and marketing. It's his assessment that most marketing people in the regional offices of global tech companies don't really care about how effective a campaign is as much as which of their friends in other companies it benefits. As a consumer, I would say that isn't far from reality. Granted not all companies are like that, but your Googles, Apples, and Sonys just don't pay a lot of attention to their representatives in these countries no matter the purchasing power of its people or the potential for gain is. The disparity between the cost and income generated per user in developing countries will continue to be this way for sometime to come. The big companies can start paying more attention to their user, partners, and potential customers in those regions if they wanted to reach the break-even point earlier. But even if they don't do anything, it will still get better eventually as people catch up to technology, but it will be a lot slower rate. Denying or limiting service to these countries however will be a great opportunity for competitors and for local startups.