Out of an estimated 6.9 billion people on our planet, a total of 2.1 billion are connected to the internet. 44% of these are in Asia. In India, the tipping point may have been reached with 100 million plus of 1.2 billion population already connected. The internet population in India has been galloping forward since the last few years, facilitated perhaps by global events such as the explosion in the smartphones and tablet markets (encompassing the resurgence of Apple), growing popularity of social networking sites like facebook and twitter and Indian phenomena like the 850 million mobile subscribers (with a significant smartphone population) which continues to grow inspite of the disquieting 2G scam. Google has a virtual monopoly here, and Facebook alone has 31 million Indians hooked on, closely followed by Orkut and Twitter. It also helps that 50% (or thereabouts) of India's population is young.
It does not take a wise man to figure out which way the wind will blow in the future. The Internet in India is poised for exponential growth, till at least it starts to pace with the telecom populace, notwithstanding recessions and depressions in world economies. Its no wonder then that interent-based enterprises are attracting seemingle crazy or even apparently bizarre valuations (flipkart and snapdeal are recent examples) from venture capitalists and private equity players. It is another matter that its debatable whether the most popular end-user device will be the laptop, tablet, netbook or the mobile phone. For all you know, it might just be a combination of the mobile (portability) and television (the largest screen). Nevertheless, today, one can visualise a future, where a vast majority of us will be almost always connected to the Net.
So, what makes the internet so revolutionary. First and foremost, the internet is an incredible source of data, knowledge, information and intelligence, and that too generally available for free. Secondly, being the world-wide web, its a network which connects people across the world. This facilitates creation of multiple net societies and communities, which may or may not be based on traditional parameters like nation, age, race, sex or religion. Thirdly, the biggest network in the world, allows for unparalled enterprise by virtue of the embedded technology which makes it simple to enter, use, create, grow and even exit. One does not necessarily have to be highly qualified or experienced to have your presence known and felt, making the Internet the most potent equaliser. This combined with the presence of a massive market without geographical boundaries, for different products and services, lends itself to global and local commerce.
While there are possibly infinite number of enterprise ideas, applications and opportunites available and at play, the revenue models essentially centre around media (space or position or both) sales as in Google, or transaction fee/margin based such as Amazon or a subscription/ membership-based model or any combination of these.
Evidently perhaps, its the best time for Indians to harness the Power of Internet, through meaningful enterprise. It does not matter whether you are poor or rich, a teenager or forty plus, sec a or b or c, a computer engineer or a school dropout.
If you are ready with your business idea, whether to create Content, connect Communities or conduct Commerce, simply log on to the future!
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