This ain’t new talk and I got deflected back to this topic when discussing Indian cos making cellphones in a Facebook group. For long entrepreneurs in India have been motivated with talks of making the next Google, Facebook or Microsoft. One may give example of China, where a local player rules the search market, not Google or example of Russia or Germany, as to how a local social networking player dominates. This does sound good to begin with. There should be an Indian competitor to Google, Facebook and even Microsoft (why not?). But hey, here’s the catch.
Take a min and thing how the internet survives? It’s Ads. Indian internet economy hasn’t evolved in that department. Being someone who makes a living of the internet, I can tell that. Last month I was pleasantly surprised when my brothers friend from IIT, turned out to be the one who made the Pulse app for iPad. It’s a hall of fame app which also got a personal mention by Steve Jobs at a keynote.
The point is that where there is an internet product, US is the logical market to sell it (see so many mobile developers form India?). With no barriers like language or reach the internet biggies like eBay and Google are bound to rule the India market too. And why not? It’s a pure early movers advantage they have. eBay, Google etc have a tried and tested platform that has functioned since a decade or more in a much larger market.They obviously would work in India with English being the primary Internet medium here. As for a Germany, China or Russia, the local language still dominates. Makes the job for the globally established ones different.
But remember the internet itself is a low penetration market in India and none of these eBay or Google are making a killer here, yet they remain a great solution for needs here for the reason mentioned above.
Coming to tech cos like Microsoft. The OS war isn’t that happening. There it’s global dominance … Let’s not get into that. But see ZOHO, it targets Microsofts big one – Office. There ARE world-class cos coming from India. Big enterprises. But in the internet space, they coming out as global giants isn’t happening, for a large part of the market here is yet to evolve / mature. Where it matters, a TCS or an Infosys have hit hard (globally), others will follow when the time is right.
So why isn’t the next Google or Facebook from India? Well, they aren’t meant to be from here!
Another reason Indians cannot do a Baidu here is because most of the content here is still English. The Chinese internet – almost all of it is… well.. Chinese. Besides, we still do not have the numbers. Internet penetration is still low.
Exactly!
To some extent, I do agree with you Annkur. When it’s about revenues, dev’s turn to us but concerning the ‘next google’, the idea cannot come from those who are centered around revenues.
The only google killer could be possibly be a service which is more service-centric than revenue-centric. Till then, amen.
While author has correctly pointed out the micro level reasons, looking at the bigger picture gives us the answer that english language while giving us small rewards is keeping us away from big success. Our 90% population is unable to excel in maths or sciences because for higher level studies you have to know english first. Among the Rest 10% , most are “ratta” students. These students perform well where qualifications are needed. But these students can never become innovators. And my friends innovation is the name of the true game. Just watch the Facebook movie and realize the importance of innovation.
All successful countries use their mother tongue. You can not name a single country which has become a developed nation by using English.