While U.S. companies struggle to figure out how to monetize social media, India’s tech industry has quietly figured out a way to make hundreds of millions (maybe billions) by servicing it. Everything from simple comments on blog posts, to breaking sophisticated Google CAPTCHAs, Craigslist listings, Gmail invites, Yahoo personals, MySpace profiles, YouTube uploads, Facebook friends, and now I hear Twitter tweets are all being performed in India on behalf of social networking sites, blogs, photo sharing, video, and other social media and Web 2.0 sites that depend heavily on online advertising as a revenue More»

Labels: india, social media

comScore released its first study of Internet usage in India, which reports that more than 28 million people in India age 15 and older accessed the Internet from home and work locations in May. This represents a 27-percent increase versus year ago, making India one of the fastest-growing Internet populations among the 37 individually-reported countries. Additionally, the fact that Internet users in India represent approximately only 3 percent of the population indicates significant potential for continued strong growth.
“India truly represents one of the most promising emerging Internet markets, given both the size More»

Labels: india, internet

Microsoft CEO, Steve Ballmer, was egged by a student during a speech at the Hungarian University in Budapest. The student threw eggs at Mr. Ballmer and accused Microsoft of stealing 45 Billion in Hungarian taxpayer money.
Many African countries have said that the aid Microsoft provides them in the form of free software, benefits Microsoft many times more in the end. Microsoft donates free software to governments and universities and hence gets them hooked on it. Shortly after the donation, the software requires More»

Labels: africa, india, linux, Microsoft, Open Source, web applications

Hot off the research block, the Pew/Internet Research Group has published a report yesterday which indicates that China’s internet population of 137 million is growing at a faster rate and is expected to outpace that of the U.S.’s of 165 to 210 million in a few years. This is not suprising considering the population of China which is at 1.3B compared to the U.S.’s at 300M.
There are many implications of this notwithstanding the impact on site globalization requirements for more and more companies wanting to do business in the lucrative Chinese market. The upside is that the “Chinese share More»

Labels: china, globalization, india, internet, localization