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Google, IBM, Yahoo….all are expanding their offerings for the 21.1 million Internet users in India, the world’s fastest- growing group of Internet subscribers, according to a March study by research group ComScore Inc. The country’s subscription numbers jumped 33 percent in 2006, beating Russia’s 21 percent increase and China’s 20 percent growth.

No wonder all these multinational companies are working on technologies that will make access to the Internet and computers easier for people in India who are more at ease with local languages.

Yahoo Inc. launched earlier this year portals in seven Indian languages. It has introduced plug-in modules to its instant messenger, that allow users to chat in nine different regional languages and scripts. Later this year, the company is also introducing Indian languages versions of its e-mail service.

IBM Corp. announced earlier this month that it has developed speech recognition software that will allow people speaking Hindi to create e-mail and documents on computers and also to operate ATMs (automated teller machines) and IVR (interactive voice response) systems.

Google has launched an Indian version of its Google Local Search to enable Indian users to find information on local businesses like restaurants, shops and hotels on the web.
It also launched an Indian version of Google Local Business Center. Any business will be able to load its information on the site, at - http://local.google.co.in . These products use English, and do not support Indian languages.

Also, Google has put up two technologies for testing by users on the Google Labs Web site:

• an Indic On-Screen Keyboard iGoogle Gadget, and
• Google Indic Transliteration.

The Indic On-Screen Keyboard iGoogle Gadget allows users to type search queries in 14 Indian languages by choosing letters from an on-screen keyboard using a mouse. Users can add the gadget of their chosen language to their personalized iGoogle home page and use it to search for content in their language.

Google Indic Transliteration allows the user to type in Hindi, a key language in India, using phonetically equivalent English text entered through an English keyboard. The content created can be used in e-mail, word processors and other applications from both Google and its competitors. This technology will help increase the amount of content available online in Hindi.

If you want to expand your online business, this untapped consumer base needs to be attended to, and what could be better than talk to them in their own Hindi language.

It’s definitely a cool idea to get ready in advance and learn Hindi a bit. A lot of learning material is readily available (don’t worry, it’s not a sales page) at www.hindilearner.com

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 21st, 2007 at 12:29 am and is filed under Hindi Language. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.