The Web and India

The Web has ushered in the most dramatic improvements in productivity in the history of mankind. Why is this? A simple explanation is: The Web makes everything go faster.

Communication has become much faster. Today, email delivery is almost instantaneous and there are few reasons to use fax (which by the way created a lot of productivity gains).

Information delivery has become much faster. Online news sites are a faster way to remain on top of the latest news.

Transactions have become faster. Even in India, where Internet has been slow to take off, Information technology has changed life for the better, atleast in the bigger cities and towns. Ten years back, I withdrew cash standing in a line in a bank. Today very few people (atleast in the bigger cities) withdraw cash this way, ATM's are ubiquitous. I pay all my bills online. Stock trading is dematerialized and mostly conducted online. A lot of people book tickets online.

The World Wide Web is extraordinarily important to India, perhaps more than any other country in the world. Investments in infrastructure in India have not kept pace with GDP growth. Hence the Web will probably make more difference to the life of the Indian consumer as compared to consumers in developed countries.

However, consuming information on the web is still difficult for the average Indian consumer. IT literacy is not widespread (apart from the metros and leading two-tier cities). User Interfaces like search and RSS are just too complex for the average consumer. Most people without an IT background still seem to prefer Web portals for getting their information. Maybe this will change in the next few years (especially with more people from the younger generations accessing the web). But for now, the interface will have to provide a “Do-it-for-me” method of consuming the web (much like television)

What will be the best interface for the Indian consumer (in general a consumer who doesn’t have much IT training)? Is it a single device like the mobile phone? Or is it multiple special purpose devices that mask the complexity of connecting to the web and fetching information from the web? Time will tell.