Google offline

Google is reaching out, offline, to millions of Indians and Indian businesses.

As google expands into newer emerging markets, with lower internet penetration, and lesser computer literacy, the concept of small companies also seeking to advertise on the net is lower. And google's survival and growth depend on advertising revenue, after all. So they are now reaching out. And they are reaching out through snail mail, offering vouchers to companies to sign in.

Till now, Adwords provided all the revenue to google. And it is driven by a vast majority of small firms that provide advertisements to google, that are thrown up with search results.

Google realised that India has an estimated 80 million internet users, while it has at least half a billion mobile users. So, obviously, there is a different currency that has more reach that what google trades in. And google is attempting to convert these many millions.

According to research firm Access Market International Partners Inc., India has around four million small and medium enterprises, or firms with a workforce between 10 and 1,000. They are expected to spend $18.6 billion (Rs85,000 crore) in 2010 to buy computers, build websites and connect to the Internet.

Google has built most of its business online, indexing information on the Internet so it can be searched easily. Only now has it digressed from this model to go offline, and to build products, including a mobile phone named Nexus One.