Podcast | How Google is tapping into the next billion users

As per a report by BGR, the android devices will download the relevant content as per users’ preferences and it will be available for the users alongside all the other downloaded media for access without an Internet connection.

Boss also said, “If you’re signed into Chrome, you’ll also get articles that are relevant to you, based on your browsing history.” Chrome will use your browsing cache history to download the relevant articles as per your location and interests.

Google has been trying extremely hard to make internet available in the remote areas with poor or no internet connectivity. As per reports, the new feature saves up to 70 percent of your data.

Last year, Google also launched a dedicated data saving app called Datally. This app gives you control over the data usage in your phone. It features functions like guest mode, data limit to keep a track and monitor your data usage.

The new update will be available in the latest version of Chrome on Android in Google Play Store.

For emerging markets, like I said earlier, that often have to purchase data through prepaid SIM cards or others with limited data plans looking for articles can be a slow and arduous process, full of constant interruptions and that most annoying thing of all – buffering. So this new feature by Google will automatically download relevant news articles when connected to Wi-Fi and cache articles for offline reading. One can also download articles through third party apps or by saving a page offline. But this method requires users to manually pick through articles. To save time, this new change by Google automatically downloads article based on your interests and your location.

So yes, there is the catch that Google might not be able to personalize you entirely so they may not exactly be the articles that you are looking for, but it still gives an opportunity for people to have some content for viewing when they are commuting and are waiting in areas with low or poor internet connectivity. Amanda Boss went on to say, “Chrome’s goal is to make the web work well for everyone, everywhere. From building offline capabilities to an automatic data saver, we have launched a number of features to improve web accessibility, especially tailored to NBU or the next billion users markets.

However, it can be frustrating and hard to access the web when you lose connectivity or spend days disconnected. Spotty connectivity shouldn’t stop us from accessing our favourite sites to get information, whether it’s recent news or the latest cricket results,” she went on say.

There are some flags that seem to control this new auto download feature. #offline-pages-prefetching is likely turn to setting on and off. #offline-pages-prefetching-ui would appear to decide whether or not these articles are shown in the download section and toggles the notification that lets you know whether the things have been downloaded or not.

This is of course a move to make developing markets more internet-connected. In several aspects saturation has mostly been reached in the Western market but the majority of the world still isn't online.

A large segment of the next billion users have shown signs of skipping the PC era and jumping directly into the mobile era. In India, for example, the exponential growth in the number of first time internet users has been achieved with the help of development in things like 4G LTE infrastructure, the rise of Reliance Jio and many other factors. But connectivity still remains an issue in many areas.

We have spoken about this on our previous deep dives about how connectivity might be an issue for a truly connected India. Mobile phone usage might be on the rise but connectivity is still very much an issue in this country. This is why Google started building offline capabilities in Google Chrome for Android.

What is a “relevant” article to you, Google hasn't detailed yet. Articles will be automatically downloaded on the basis of the most popular content in the loacation.

The company does need to exercise caution here as it is possible that chrome might automatically end up downloading articles the user doesn't want or need. Like I said earlier, in the fake news world that we're living, perhaps the most popular content within that particular region could well be sources that are pedalling fake news, and they might automatically get downloaded into your phone without your consent. So there does seem to be some room for this being misused.

It does leave some room for unwanted entry of data points into your phone. That is something Google needs to be vigilant about as do the users.
Only recently did another tech giant Facebook introduce some new features which were India-first that were also related to the idea of lack of connectivity in a large part of the country.

Let’s take a quick look at the stats in India – The number of internet users in India will reach 500 million by June 2018, a report by IAMAI and Kantar IMRB. At the end of December 2017, India had 481 million users, growing 11.34 percent from 2016. As per the findings of the report, urban India witnessed a growthof 9.66 percent from December 2016 and is estimated to have around 295 million internet users as on December 2017.

On the other hand, rural India witnessed growth of 14.11 percent from December 2016 and is estimated to have around 186 million internet users as on December 2017.

The three new features, which will be piloted in India first, and then elsewhere in the worldare as follows:

1. Users will now be able to put up voice posts and share voice messages
2. Facebook will now let you save your photos and videos directly to your account in the
Facebook Cloud, so to speak.
3. Users can now archive their Facebook Stories.

It appears that while these technologies may have taken birth in the West, their rise and continued perpetuation will depend very much on the East and other developing markets.

Thank you for joining us.