In today’s world, where everything is so digitalised, it’s incredible to imagine that there are people in some pockets in the world who haven’t used Internet. Spotting a huge market in such areas, tech giants Google and Facebook introduced services to Asia, hoping to tap some two billion people who haven’t experienced the Web.
According to a report on Nikkei Asian Review, a survey conducted by Facebook and McKinsey & Company brought to light the fact that there are around 4.4 billion users around the world who do not use the Internet, and that more than half of this number, was in Asia.
Reduced data load
In May, search engine giant Google started to offer a service in Indonesia on Android operating system, where users could load websites even in areas that had poor mobile reception. As soon as the company figures out that the speed is slow, data heavy information, such as videos, photos as logos, are either not displayed altogether or are shown with lesser resolution. According to Google, this service can reduce the usage of data by about 80 per cent.
The company also hopes to introduce this service to India and Brazil, since both countries are colossal, in size and population.
To catch up with Google’s ad revenues, Facebook brought out Internet.org service, by teaming up with Reliance communications. This service lets users browse their social networking site and get other services like weather updates, for free. It has also introduced this service in Indonesia, the Philippines and Bangladesh and has around nine million total users.
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