[Google, which missed out on the rise of the internet in China ,
is determined not to make the same mistake in India .
It has marshaled some of its best developers, designers and researchers to
figure out how to adapt or completely rethink products like YouTube to serve
the needs of mobile internet users with smaller budgets but big aspirations.]
By Vindu Goel
 |
Cellphone
users in
to
get feedback about apps. Google is changing core products in
use
less data and work better on low-end smartphones.
Credit
Rebecca Conway for The New York Times
|
“It’s necessary for me to learn new things,” said Manju, who
uses only one name. She was so thrilled to discover YouTube and other streaming
video services that she quickly burned through her monthly data plan. Now her
phone carrier, Reliance Jio, has relegated her to a trickle of low-speed data
until next month, when her plan resets.
“It’s all finished,” she complained on Monday when a Google
researcher came to visit to ask about her online habits.
Google, which missed out on the rise of the internet in China ,
is determined not to make the same mistake in India .
It has marshaled some of its best developers, designers and researchers to
figure out how to adapt or completely rethink products like YouTube to serve
the needs of mobile internet users with smaller budgets but big aspirations.
Many of the world’s biggest tech companies — Facebook, Google
and Amazon from the United States ,
and Alibaba and Tencent from China
— are competing with local businesses like Reliance, Flipkart and Paytm to win
their loyalties. With 1.3 billion people, only one-third of whom are currently
online, India
has huge moneymaking potential for the services that secure a foothold.
At an event on Tuesday in New Delhi ,
Google unveiled its most ambitious India-focused product so far — a new version
of its Android operating system and related apps designed for low-end
smartphones. The package will include YouTube Go, which allows users to easily
download and share videos with their friends, and Google Go, a variant of its
search engine that helps users find information by tapping the smartphone
screen instead of typing a query.
“We have to figure out how to build the right products for
them,” said Caesar Sengupta, the Google vice president who oversees Next
Billion Users, its unit dedicated to creating products for emerging markets
like India , Brazil
and Indonesia . “This
is a very high priority for Google.”
Many of the new Indian users have basic phones, which make
it difficult for them to run certain apps or to store big files like videos. Data
plans are limited, and despite a telecom price war that has cut the price of a
megabyte of data by as much as 97 percent, some customers are unable to afford
more data when they run out.
Google’s Android software and apps like the Chrome browser, Maps
and YouTube are often included with smartphones. But Facebook also makes
products that vie for the attention of Indian consumers and advertisers.
In fact, WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram — all Facebook
products — occupied three of the top six spots this year when the research firm
App Annie measured how Indians spent their time online.
Arjun Vishwanathan, associate director of emerging
technologies at IDC India, said that search, Google’s core expertise, was
“culturally not that important to Indians.”
“Where Google scores is its ability to keep it simple and
keep it convenient while letting the consumer decide what she wants to do
without being in her face,” he said. Google also has vast amounts of data about
its users that can be valuable in developing new products and targeting ads, he
said.
Google has been serving Indian internet users for as long as
the company has been around. But intense efforts to adapt Google’s products for
India — and
invent new ones to serve Indian customers — began in earnest in 2015 after
Sundar Pichai, who was born in India ,
became Google’s chief executive.
Over the past few months, Mr. Sengupta’s team has been
releasing new products like Tez, a payments app, and Datally, a data-saving app.
On Tuesday, Google announced that Maps will offer driving directions for
motorcycles and two-wheeled scooters, which are common forms of transportation
here.
All of the work is backed by an extensive research effort by
Google in India
and other developing countries to examine how people really use their phones, what
needs are unmet and how the company’s apps are received.
Datally was a product of such research. When a user opens it,
a big screen pops up and shows how much mobile data the person has used, measurable
by day, week or month. It also shows which apps are using the data and allows
users to block some or all of them. A recent tweak added a feature for finding
nearby Wi-Fi hot spots.
Ted McCarthy, a Google user experience researcher, was in Jodhpur
on Sunday and Monday to gather feedback on Datally and another app, a voice-controlled
virtual assistant that is made to work on a $23 feature phone. He quizzed
Indians about their internet use, their habits, even how they commuted to work,
collecting information to take back to the team.
One of the interview subjects, Deepika Panwar, 22, works in
a bookkeeping job while trying to start a clothing and jewelry business. Most
of her salary, Ms. Panwar said, goes to her parents to help support her younger
brother and sister. She spends 179 rupees a month, or about $2.77, for a
cellphone line with one gigabyte of data.
She said her monthly data pack was often gone in 15 days as
she browsed YouTube for fashion videos, used WhatsApp or surfed the web.
When Mr. McCarthy showed her Datally, Ms. Panwar quickly
grasped what it was about. “It is showing me what each application is doing,”
she said. “It will be a great help to me.”
The interviews confirmed to Mr. McCarthy that Datally’s
fundamental premise was sound: The tool would be useful to people with data
constraints. But they also revealed a couple of problems. The app’s Wi-Fi
finder had few public hot spots to suggest. And the technical language on the
sign-up screen — with a warning that the app was creating a virtual private
network to monitor network traffic — stymied potential users.
On Monday, Mr. McCarthy visited Manju and showed her the
Google Assistant on her new Reliance Jio feature phone. The app allows her to
speak commands to the phone in Hindi or English.
Language has been a particular barrier for internet adoption
in India . The
voice-driven assistant has been very popular in India ,
with 28 percent of all Google searches conducted by voice.
At first, the app had trouble understanding her. But before
long, she had it answering her questions.
“I just say it, and it’s there,” she said.
Follow Vindu Goel on Twitter: @vindugoel.
