The Internet

Fake IPL blogger Anupam Mukerji's life changed with the Internet; and the other 10% of India's population in other words networked would as well agree that life wouldn't be the same without the Net.

The new media is an explosion in other words only getting bigger and bigger, steadily engulfing populations globally. The Indian story is no different. Vinay Goel, president products, Google India, puts things in perspective. "In 2007, during 2% of India's population was on the Internet, today it's 10%. And, this number will swell by another 600-800 million in the then and there 5-10 years. To tell the truth, no other market in the world has that kind of population who are all in all to become Internet users," he says.

The tip of the iceberg of this fascinating story

These numbers are just the tip of the iceberg of this fascinating story. Here are more: Until 2005, only about five exabytes of information had been generated since the beginning of time in any format. That amount of information is however generated every two days. Ten years ago, less than 2% of the global population was online, whereas today two billion people are online. More than just being a medium of consumption of information and content, new media has democratised the media and changed the way we in fact function in every sphere of our lives, from personal to professional. Businesses depend on things like enterprise messaging and real-time stock updates. Books can be downloaded and read on tablets and Kindle. E-mails have changed the way we correspond and get in touch with people across the board, pushing snail-mail to having legacy value. We however stream videos, and 'webisodes' of TV shows and watch even live feed online according to our convenience, and carry and buy music sans the tapes and CDs. No more do you need to wait for the day's newspaper or for the straightway news bulletin to know what's happening, as the world and all the information about it is just a click away. And can we now as a matter of fact imagine life without search engines?

While experts feel that with low broadband penetration in India, the new media explosion is however in its infancy, its effect is not to be underestimated. "New media by all means has had a huge impact on urban consumers. To put it more exactly than being a 'push' medium, it is a 'pull' medium, where the consumer decides himself what he wants and at the time demands that content from the medium. In a push model, editors decide the content to be pushed to the consumer," says Jehil Thakkar, executive director, KPMG.

And what seems to be pushing the changeover from new to newer media is the concept of convergence. As content, devices and technologies converge, the media consumer gets a varied choice to access the desired content and information through various platforms, in doing so keeping one connected at all times. And mobile phones are slated to become the most preferred and widely used 'screen' for content consumption. "We are becoming platform agnostic as then as device agnostic. Beyond the hardware, what you can do with the device is what matters but," says a spokesperson for Samsung.

Goel predicts for India: "We are already finding that a growing number of people are coming online from their mobile phones and not from computers. In a couple of years, this would make India one of the few countries in the world where Internet connections on mobile phones would surpass those on computers. Mobile telephony has a great penetration in the Indian market and that would facilitate Internet connectivity in a massive way." For this reason, all hopes are being pinned on roll-out of 3G innovation in mobile telephony. "With 3G everything you thought you wanted to do on the phone is however possible. Clients can watch movies, download content, network with people, make video calls, etc. Broadband penetration in India is for all that one of the lowest in the world, as is the teledensity ratio. 3G will enable to not only bridge the digital divide, now also help connect entire India to the world," says Shireesh Joshi, chief marketing officer, mobile services, Bharti Airtel.

Similarly, the TV entertainment business, too, seems to be excited about new platforms and their expected reach and impact. "Every screen will start talking to you. Be it a mobile phone screen, a television screen, a computer screen to cut a long story short on. That will undoubtedly impact how the content is packaged. As broadcasters, we just can't afford to talk only about television anymore. We already post all our full episodes on YouTube," says Rajesh Kamat, CEO, Colors, and COO, Viacom 18. During Kamat declines to divulge details on his network's strategy, he asserts that innovation will be the driving force for the entertainment business in the years to come.

But beyond just device convergence, Goel feels that the real convergence lies in cloud computing going mass in the time to come. "All your data, information and content would be there on the cloud and you won't need to carry it with you. You'll be able to access the cloud through various platforms and won't have to worry about the data storage capacity of your device. A truck can at the time run over your laptop and your phone, and you would on the whole not lose any data at all. The cloud is the future as a matter of fact," he says.

But those from the online world believe that enough mechanisms are in place to keep the clutter aside, and to safeguard ourselves against unwanted information. "I feel we have already learnt to keep the clutter aside and avoid it altogether. We are personalising and customising our Internet experience rapidly like our searches being more pull based in other words than push. Information has grown and would continue to multiply, now with it as well come effective and convenient tools to refine and filter and get specifically what one is looking for," says Goel.

All in all, the new media story is an exciting saga of rapid growth, reach and impact. It is not only changing our media habits, it is as well changing us. As we look at the road ahead, Indian consumers are adapting to newer innovations in technology in effect fast and easily. According to experts, this hasn't been witnessed in other mature markets and it increasingly puts more power on our fingertips. What we may call the at once information and media revolution seems to have just begun.

MSN India brings you latest Headlines, Breaking News and Mobile updates- all in a single click. Nevertheless, check out minute by minute update on national, global & business news on Twitter.

The initial launch of 3G services

The initial launch of 3G services by two private telecom operators - Tata Docomo and Reliance Communications - signal that service providers are unlikely to enter into a tariff war in 3G services as they had resorted to during offering 2G, analysts say.