India feels like Silicon Valley of mid-90: Google
India feels like Silicon Valley of mid-90: Google
Discussing why
India is important to Google, Sridhar Ramaswamy, Senior VP-Ad Products
at Google told CNBC-TV18’s Kritika Saxena that “It (India) is just
incredibly rich with possibilities.”
With the ever-increasing
mobile phone and internet users, India has ample of growing
possibilities feels the top developers at Google.
Discussing why India is important to Google, Sridhar Ramaswamy, Senior VP-Ad Products at Google told CNBC-TV18’s Kritika Saxena that “It (India) is just incredibly rich with possibilities.”
“India in many ways feels like the Silicon Valley of the mid late 90s,” he said.
After software innovations like self-driven cars and robotics, Google is now looking at combining software and hardware into the real world, said Aparna Chennapragada, Senior VP-Google Now, Google.
In India, the innovation might not come in form of self-driven cars or robotics, but will be customised to their needs, Chennapragada said.
In US, transition from desktop to mobile application happened in stages whereas in India, there has been heavy application usage from early on.
By 2020, the world would have five billion internet connected users and we want to reach everyone, Amit Singhal, Senior VP-Search said.
The company does have plans to launch its new wallet, the Android Pay in India.
“We are looking at the feasibility of the various banking systems and how we can work with them. As soon as we can make it work with the local partners because Google is deeply based on partnerships, we would bring it to India,” Singhal said.
Below is the transcript of Amit Singhal, Aparna Chennapragada and Sridhar Ramaswamy’s interview with Kritika Saxena on CNBC-TV18.
Q: When Sundar was appointed, people were saying that he is the blue-eyed boy, but people call you the hidden jewel of Google. So, tell me, search is of course the widest function. Google is now streamlining its operations. What really are the immediate challenges that are facing you right now and we are talking about internet of things, we are talking about innovation, we are talking about the next technology wave of revolution. For Google Search, what is the next wave of revolution, what is the next product which will change the technological landscape?
Singhal: Clearly, we are changing Search. In the last three years, we have completely changed Search and made it fit for mobile. So, we feel very good about where we are in mobile. The next set of challenges are going to be how do we build a mobile product that actually is beneficial to a billion users in India, five billion users in the world because by some projections, by 2020, the world would have five billion internet connected users and we want to reach everyone.
We want to build a product that they can use to improve their lives, their families’ lives, their communities’ lives. And that is the biggest challenge as to what does it take. Things like Google Now are a big investment for us to build a product that five billion users can actually use and enjoy.
Q: So, Google Now, one of the largest investments that we have seen in recent time - you have probably had the most success, the fastest success that we have seen. I am going to ask you a slightly different question and I will ask you about India directly. The challenge that Google Now is facing in India is localisation. There is the obvious issue of localisation. How are you really countering that not just in India, but across the world? How are you bridging that gap and of course, you have to be at the fore-front of that?
Chennapragada: Yes, this is exactly where we spend a lot of time and personally, I spend a lot of time obsessing over and there are actually two things to what you said. I mean you are zeroing in on the two things that we work on. One is really making sure that what we provide. With Google Now, we are saying how can we proactively assist you? But, what assistance you need sitting here in the Silicon Valley where you are stuck on traffic on 101 Highway is completely different from what Surat needs.
So, one question first is how do we get relevant there? In our case, what we have done is we have done a world-wide sort of user studies – in India, in Indonesia and said, guess what, and let us start from scratch. What are the points of daily life assistance that people need.
So, obviously it is things like train schedule, it is things like daily astrology, it is things like the cricket score and IPL happens. It is very different in India, very different in Indonesia. That is one big challenge - localisation.
For us, the second big challenge is how do we actually teach you? Many of these users are coming online for the first time, mostly android phones and how do we actually teach them this? There is this treasure trove of information waiting for them in the web that if only they knew to Google Search and Google Now, they would use for us. That is the other big challenge.
My mum, who is educated, who uses a phone, she did not for example, know that you could actually go online and use translate.
Singhal: One of the things that users do not know that we have built some of the best Hindi speech recognition systems.
Q: But the complaint is that it does not work very well.
Singhal: What do you mean? I use it all the time and it works perfectly. So, just yesterday, we published a blog post which said that we have built the best speech recognition system in the world. We are pushing the scientific boundaries. And so, I have been testing it myself. We know that it is hard for people to type in Hindi even though we have built a great Hindi keyboard as well.
At the same time, we have built the best Hindi speech recognition system and you combine that with our knowledge graph which we have brought to India early on and what you get is a very different mobile product which is what gets me so excited about the future in India.
Q: So, you are excited about the future in India. There are lots of prospects there. As you said, a lot of challenges to concur a yes, but the growth opportunity, the innovation opportunity is tremendous. But the issue of regulation is something that is prevalent. Prime Minister Modi is in the Silicon Valley. He is going to be discussing all these issues. But how are you concurring this because on a daily basis, there are privacy issues, there is issues with respect to your regulatory hurdles. How are you able to keep the customer happy and yet, handle something as basic as privacy laws? Your report itself said that India is the toughest when it comes to basic privacy norms.
Singhal: Let us just break it down to first principles. First of all, we have built Google for our users. We deeply believe in free information brought to every user would improve their lives. That is the very first thing. So, everything we do at Google is thinking about the users first and building a search engine, building answers, knowledge graph and Google Now for our users.
At the same time, when it comes to regulation, we operate in multiple countries and we have to abide by every country’s law. That is the law of the land - we have to abide by it. We do that in every country we operate in regarding... (Interrupted)
Q: But it is an issue right? Does it hinder your operation in that case?
Singhal: We do not actually think about it from a privacy angle in that sense all the time. We first think about the user and then thinking about the user, we build products and then we need to make sure that those products abide by local laws.
So if a government’s valid local law requests, if they send it to us, yes, we will comply with it. So, that is how we think about it.
Q: I will come back to India in just a bit. But, innovation is of course the one thing that this campus breathes on. I want to talk to you about some specific areas about innovation. Robotics, that is in the making, work in progress. By when can you expect it to launch?
Singhal: Robotics is a field that has been around for 30-40 years as a field of computer science and you already see huge improvements in productivity that humanity has made thanks to robotics. Now, those robots are going to increasingly make humans productive.
We, at Google, deeply believe in a symphony between human beings and machines, be it human beings and computers, be it human beings and cell phones, be it human beings and robotic arms.
Our ethos is how we can improve human lives with technology. That is what Google is all about, be it information, be it devices, be it robotics. As you see, time will progress and you would see robotics actually improving daily lives even more.
Q: We spoke about robotics, the self driven car, it is in the testing phase, when will it launch over here? That is one important factor but we are talking about innovation over here, is India really ready for innovation?
Chennapragada: On the first front, the way I think about this is that next wave, if you look at how technologies evolve; there is tremendous innovation in the software layer that has happened like amazing information services. However, the next wave I think of is where hardware and software comes together into the real world.
So, robotics is an example, self driving cars is another example where you have this combination of powerful advances in hardware and software and then they actually affect your real world. They take the heavy lifting out of your daily life like why should I drive a car that is like the next big shift that is happening and Google and many other companies are looking at it.
To your question about India, if you look at the first platform shift with internet and I was part of that in 1999, I first joined an MIT Startup which made internet much faster. What is different from that platform and this for me is just the reach of phones in India and the fact that there is a revolution.
Q: Is India ready for a self driven car? Do we have the ecosystem and that brings me to my second question, the issues of basic internet connectivity which Google now suffers with all the time, how do you concur that, how do you look at self driven car, robotics?
Chennapragada: The one point worth making is that innovation there may not come in the form of self driven cars or robotics. It will be custom to what the people there need.
Singhal: For instance, take X as an example or take cell phones as an example. Not everyone can afford Rs 50,000 cell phone and Android has made it possible for great cell phones to be available in Rs 6,000-10,000 price range. Now, that is the first barrier that you have to knock down to bring this beauty of internet to everyone and that is why with Android and various other things we are doing - we want to bring technology to everyone in India.
Q: When is Android Pay launching?
Singhal: Android Pay launched here in the United States.
Q: When is it launching in India?
Singhal: We are looking at the feasibility of the various banking systems and how we can work with them. As soon as we can make it work with the local partners because Google is deeply based on partnerships, we would bring it to India.
Q: Indian government, a lot of talk about Digital India, a lot of talk about Make in India – how can Google contribute?
Singhal: I cannot be more excited about Digital India because fundamentally we don’t believe that any one company can bring the internet to everyone in India. Everyone in India deserves the joy of information that I living in the West has enjoyed.
Q: The government hasn’t done enough yet.
Singhal: It would be a partnership between the government and private companies, maybe private companies building phones that are sub USD 100 and government bringing access through various mediums.
Q: Which is what we discussed in these various meetings?
Singhal: And I look forward to that.
Q: You take care of the bulk of Google revenues of course. Google prides itself in being free for its consumers. But the reason why it can do so is because it needs the ad products to live by. How do you manage to differentiate yourself and in the time when technology is changing, how are you able to differentiate yourself from an ad product point of view across your multiple – there is Search, there is Google Now, there is Android – there is multiple products?
Ramaswamy: The core strength of Google advertising since the beginning has really been intent. You come to Google and you want to know about something and you want to buy a product and you want to discover something or a place near you, so that continues to be very strongly true even in the mobile world.
These are the moments that we call micro-moments, where people have strongly expressed needs. Our advertising has always been focused on how do you get great advertising in front of the users at the moment that they want it. That principle has been one that has continued through these 10 plus years of Google advertising.
Of course, now we have specialized. YouTube is very big. YouTube is also huge in India in terms of consumption, and so, we have developed a brand advertising business, where things like TrueView ads where we continue give users a choice. We have product TrueView because in five seconds you can decide if you want to watch that or not and many people actually do. We make money on YouTube.
We have differentiated our ad products over the years, but the core principles of be relevant to the user have advertising be very thoughtful continue to be true and they continue to be our driving principles today and we have been fortunate to achieve a lot of success while continuing to hang on to these core principles.
Q: The one sense that people get at this point is that you will gradually look at monetising your individual Google products and using individual products for example, Map, using ad products within Google Maps, and so on and so forth. Is that an option that you are looking at? Monetising individual Google products?
Ramaswamy: We do show ads in obviously YouTube and Search, but we also show ads in Maps and Gmail. I think as long as the advertising is a tasteful compliment to the product, ideally, it is aligned with the goals of the product - we think that is perfectly fine.
So, we do not show many ads in Google Now, for example, which is our assist engine, but if we are able to tell you the new version of a product that you already have, your phone, that you are very interested knowing about, we have actually done a good service to you.
This is also an example of something that you might like to see in Gmail. So, I always take what the consumer end of the product is and what role ads can play within that consumer intent to design new products.
Q: So, it is going to be across products over a period of time?
Ramaswamy: That is right.
Q: How is the India market in that case differentiated when you look at, you said that there is a common flavour, but how do you differentiate the India market. And in terms of growth, being the largest revenue generator, possibly the single largest revenue generator for Google, in terms of growth, how does India stack in?
Ramaswamy: India, as you know, is one of the largest internet markets that there is – 350 plus million users, projected to grow over 500 in within the next couple of years and ecosystem of tech companies is just incredibly vibrant. So, it is a very exciting place.
From a Google perspective, we have always been very good when it comes to advertising in India. We have many of India’s largest companies as our advertisers. And something like YouTube definitely helps because it is a way for them to reach an audience. For example, younger people watch way more YouTube than others. So, those conversations are ongoing.
The thing that I would say is unique about India is the rise of apps which is in many ways been almost faster than what has happened in the US. The US has been through desktop web, then mobile web and then apps, while in India, there is heavy app usage coming from early on.
As a company, we have embraced our app promotion, we recently launched apps in Play Search as a way for consumers to discover apps that they might be interested in but also to be honest, for developers to reach consumers and have themselves be differentiated in ways that were not always easy. So, we will continue to do those things.
We are also invested a little bit farther ahead in things like app deep indexing, which we think if there are multiple shopping apps on your phone, rather than search through each of them, we might be able to give you the best link to the right app.
So, India is different in many ways, but these core principles of information discovery user relevance are all there. We will adapt the products that we create to be successful in the India market. That is definitely a market that we are all very keenly watching.
Q: How do you adapt our products to new innovations that you come up with? For instance now there is also Brillio that you are talking about, the operating system that has been created for Internet of Things (IoT) specifically. Similar to this many various products across the board, how do you adapt ad products with these specific new innovative products that you come up with?
Ramaswamy: My take honestly is that ads are not an answer to everything. When we create new products, the first goal of that product should be how do you create amazing user experiences. If and when ads are a natural compliment to that experience then you bring them in.
Q: However the new products - the futuristic products that you are looking at - is that something where you can put ads in?
Ramaswamy: It depends on the products and we definitely want to put the consumer value first. So, for example when it comes to wearables, you and I need to believe that it is important for us to have Android wear on our wrist. You and I need to believe that it adds value to our life - that it is very useful and then you can say if you are searching on that device and it actually is an ad that is the most useful result then it is okay for you to see it.
So, we definitely have this philosophy of putting the consumer experience first, making it absolutely great and then having ads as a compliment to that experience.
Q: India market is a fast growing market so over the next five years what is your outlook?
Ramaswamy: I think it is one of those cases where there is just an explosion of possibilities. India in many ways feels like the Silicon Valley of the mid late 90s.
Q: And that is the Prime Minister’s pitch.
Ramaswamy: Yes that is right, it is. The amount of energy there is amazing. I am very excited by things like the development of the local language web like the Hindi web for example. As you know hundreds of millions of people, they are not English speaking like you and me; we don’t want them to be left behind when it comes to the internet. So, it is just incredibly rich with possibility. I can’t think of a more exciting place.
Discussing why India is important to Google, Sridhar Ramaswamy, Senior VP-Ad Products at Google told CNBC-TV18’s Kritika Saxena that “It (India) is just incredibly rich with possibilities.”
“India in many ways feels like the Silicon Valley of the mid late 90s,” he said.
After software innovations like self-driven cars and robotics, Google is now looking at combining software and hardware into the real world, said Aparna Chennapragada, Senior VP-Google Now, Google.
In India, the innovation might not come in form of self-driven cars or robotics, but will be customised to their needs, Chennapragada said.
In US, transition from desktop to mobile application happened in stages whereas in India, there has been heavy application usage from early on.
By 2020, the world would have five billion internet connected users and we want to reach everyone, Amit Singhal, Senior VP-Search said.
The company does have plans to launch its new wallet, the Android Pay in India.
“We are looking at the feasibility of the various banking systems and how we can work with them. As soon as we can make it work with the local partners because Google is deeply based on partnerships, we would bring it to India,” Singhal said.
Below is the transcript of Amit Singhal, Aparna Chennapragada and Sridhar Ramaswamy’s interview with Kritika Saxena on CNBC-TV18.
Q: When Sundar was appointed, people were saying that he is the blue-eyed boy, but people call you the hidden jewel of Google. So, tell me, search is of course the widest function. Google is now streamlining its operations. What really are the immediate challenges that are facing you right now and we are talking about internet of things, we are talking about innovation, we are talking about the next technology wave of revolution. For Google Search, what is the next wave of revolution, what is the next product which will change the technological landscape?
Singhal: Clearly, we are changing Search. In the last three years, we have completely changed Search and made it fit for mobile. So, we feel very good about where we are in mobile. The next set of challenges are going to be how do we build a mobile product that actually is beneficial to a billion users in India, five billion users in the world because by some projections, by 2020, the world would have five billion internet connected users and we want to reach everyone.
We want to build a product that they can use to improve their lives, their families’ lives, their communities’ lives. And that is the biggest challenge as to what does it take. Things like Google Now are a big investment for us to build a product that five billion users can actually use and enjoy.
Q: So, Google Now, one of the largest investments that we have seen in recent time - you have probably had the most success, the fastest success that we have seen. I am going to ask you a slightly different question and I will ask you about India directly. The challenge that Google Now is facing in India is localisation. There is the obvious issue of localisation. How are you really countering that not just in India, but across the world? How are you bridging that gap and of course, you have to be at the fore-front of that?
Chennapragada: Yes, this is exactly where we spend a lot of time and personally, I spend a lot of time obsessing over and there are actually two things to what you said. I mean you are zeroing in on the two things that we work on. One is really making sure that what we provide. With Google Now, we are saying how can we proactively assist you? But, what assistance you need sitting here in the Silicon Valley where you are stuck on traffic on 101 Highway is completely different from what Surat needs.
So, one question first is how do we get relevant there? In our case, what we have done is we have done a world-wide sort of user studies – in India, in Indonesia and said, guess what, and let us start from scratch. What are the points of daily life assistance that people need.
So, obviously it is things like train schedule, it is things like daily astrology, it is things like the cricket score and IPL happens. It is very different in India, very different in Indonesia. That is one big challenge - localisation.
For us, the second big challenge is how do we actually teach you? Many of these users are coming online for the first time, mostly android phones and how do we actually teach them this? There is this treasure trove of information waiting for them in the web that if only they knew to Google Search and Google Now, they would use for us. That is the other big challenge.
My mum, who is educated, who uses a phone, she did not for example, know that you could actually go online and use translate.
Singhal: One of the things that users do not know that we have built some of the best Hindi speech recognition systems.
Q: But the complaint is that it does not work very well.
Singhal: What do you mean? I use it all the time and it works perfectly. So, just yesterday, we published a blog post which said that we have built the best speech recognition system in the world. We are pushing the scientific boundaries. And so, I have been testing it myself. We know that it is hard for people to type in Hindi even though we have built a great Hindi keyboard as well.
At the same time, we have built the best Hindi speech recognition system and you combine that with our knowledge graph which we have brought to India early on and what you get is a very different mobile product which is what gets me so excited about the future in India.
Q: So, you are excited about the future in India. There are lots of prospects there. As you said, a lot of challenges to concur a yes, but the growth opportunity, the innovation opportunity is tremendous. But the issue of regulation is something that is prevalent. Prime Minister Modi is in the Silicon Valley. He is going to be discussing all these issues. But how are you concurring this because on a daily basis, there are privacy issues, there is issues with respect to your regulatory hurdles. How are you able to keep the customer happy and yet, handle something as basic as privacy laws? Your report itself said that India is the toughest when it comes to basic privacy norms.
Singhal: Let us just break it down to first principles. First of all, we have built Google for our users. We deeply believe in free information brought to every user would improve their lives. That is the very first thing. So, everything we do at Google is thinking about the users first and building a search engine, building answers, knowledge graph and Google Now for our users.
At the same time, when it comes to regulation, we operate in multiple countries and we have to abide by every country’s law. That is the law of the land - we have to abide by it. We do that in every country we operate in regarding... (Interrupted)
Q: But it is an issue right? Does it hinder your operation in that case?
Singhal: We do not actually think about it from a privacy angle in that sense all the time. We first think about the user and then thinking about the user, we build products and then we need to make sure that those products abide by local laws.
So if a government’s valid local law requests, if they send it to us, yes, we will comply with it. So, that is how we think about it.
Q: I will come back to India in just a bit. But, innovation is of course the one thing that this campus breathes on. I want to talk to you about some specific areas about innovation. Robotics, that is in the making, work in progress. By when can you expect it to launch?
Singhal: Robotics is a field that has been around for 30-40 years as a field of computer science and you already see huge improvements in productivity that humanity has made thanks to robotics. Now, those robots are going to increasingly make humans productive.
We, at Google, deeply believe in a symphony between human beings and machines, be it human beings and computers, be it human beings and cell phones, be it human beings and robotic arms.
Our ethos is how we can improve human lives with technology. That is what Google is all about, be it information, be it devices, be it robotics. As you see, time will progress and you would see robotics actually improving daily lives even more.
Q: We spoke about robotics, the self driven car, it is in the testing phase, when will it launch over here? That is one important factor but we are talking about innovation over here, is India really ready for innovation?
Chennapragada: On the first front, the way I think about this is that next wave, if you look at how technologies evolve; there is tremendous innovation in the software layer that has happened like amazing information services. However, the next wave I think of is where hardware and software comes together into the real world.
So, robotics is an example, self driving cars is another example where you have this combination of powerful advances in hardware and software and then they actually affect your real world. They take the heavy lifting out of your daily life like why should I drive a car that is like the next big shift that is happening and Google and many other companies are looking at it.
To your question about India, if you look at the first platform shift with internet and I was part of that in 1999, I first joined an MIT Startup which made internet much faster. What is different from that platform and this for me is just the reach of phones in India and the fact that there is a revolution.
Q: Is India ready for a self driven car? Do we have the ecosystem and that brings me to my second question, the issues of basic internet connectivity which Google now suffers with all the time, how do you concur that, how do you look at self driven car, robotics?
Chennapragada: The one point worth making is that innovation there may not come in the form of self driven cars or robotics. It will be custom to what the people there need.
Singhal: For instance, take X as an example or take cell phones as an example. Not everyone can afford Rs 50,000 cell phone and Android has made it possible for great cell phones to be available in Rs 6,000-10,000 price range. Now, that is the first barrier that you have to knock down to bring this beauty of internet to everyone and that is why with Android and various other things we are doing - we want to bring technology to everyone in India.
Q: When is Android Pay launching?
Singhal: Android Pay launched here in the United States.
Q: When is it launching in India?
Singhal: We are looking at the feasibility of the various banking systems and how we can work with them. As soon as we can make it work with the local partners because Google is deeply based on partnerships, we would bring it to India.
Q: Indian government, a lot of talk about Digital India, a lot of talk about Make in India – how can Google contribute?
Singhal: I cannot be more excited about Digital India because fundamentally we don’t believe that any one company can bring the internet to everyone in India. Everyone in India deserves the joy of information that I living in the West has enjoyed.
Q: The government hasn’t done enough yet.
Singhal: It would be a partnership between the government and private companies, maybe private companies building phones that are sub USD 100 and government bringing access through various mediums.
Q: Which is what we discussed in these various meetings?
Singhal: And I look forward to that.
Q: You take care of the bulk of Google revenues of course. Google prides itself in being free for its consumers. But the reason why it can do so is because it needs the ad products to live by. How do you manage to differentiate yourself and in the time when technology is changing, how are you able to differentiate yourself from an ad product point of view across your multiple – there is Search, there is Google Now, there is Android – there is multiple products?
Ramaswamy: The core strength of Google advertising since the beginning has really been intent. You come to Google and you want to know about something and you want to buy a product and you want to discover something or a place near you, so that continues to be very strongly true even in the mobile world.
These are the moments that we call micro-moments, where people have strongly expressed needs. Our advertising has always been focused on how do you get great advertising in front of the users at the moment that they want it. That principle has been one that has continued through these 10 plus years of Google advertising.
Of course, now we have specialized. YouTube is very big. YouTube is also huge in India in terms of consumption, and so, we have developed a brand advertising business, where things like TrueView ads where we continue give users a choice. We have product TrueView because in five seconds you can decide if you want to watch that or not and many people actually do. We make money on YouTube.
We have differentiated our ad products over the years, but the core principles of be relevant to the user have advertising be very thoughtful continue to be true and they continue to be our driving principles today and we have been fortunate to achieve a lot of success while continuing to hang on to these core principles.
Q: The one sense that people get at this point is that you will gradually look at monetising your individual Google products and using individual products for example, Map, using ad products within Google Maps, and so on and so forth. Is that an option that you are looking at? Monetising individual Google products?
Ramaswamy: We do show ads in obviously YouTube and Search, but we also show ads in Maps and Gmail. I think as long as the advertising is a tasteful compliment to the product, ideally, it is aligned with the goals of the product - we think that is perfectly fine.
So, we do not show many ads in Google Now, for example, which is our assist engine, but if we are able to tell you the new version of a product that you already have, your phone, that you are very interested knowing about, we have actually done a good service to you.
This is also an example of something that you might like to see in Gmail. So, I always take what the consumer end of the product is and what role ads can play within that consumer intent to design new products.
Q: So, it is going to be across products over a period of time?
Ramaswamy: That is right.
Q: How is the India market in that case differentiated when you look at, you said that there is a common flavour, but how do you differentiate the India market. And in terms of growth, being the largest revenue generator, possibly the single largest revenue generator for Google, in terms of growth, how does India stack in?
Ramaswamy: India, as you know, is one of the largest internet markets that there is – 350 plus million users, projected to grow over 500 in within the next couple of years and ecosystem of tech companies is just incredibly vibrant. So, it is a very exciting place.
From a Google perspective, we have always been very good when it comes to advertising in India. We have many of India’s largest companies as our advertisers. And something like YouTube definitely helps because it is a way for them to reach an audience. For example, younger people watch way more YouTube than others. So, those conversations are ongoing.
The thing that I would say is unique about India is the rise of apps which is in many ways been almost faster than what has happened in the US. The US has been through desktop web, then mobile web and then apps, while in India, there is heavy app usage coming from early on.
As a company, we have embraced our app promotion, we recently launched apps in Play Search as a way for consumers to discover apps that they might be interested in but also to be honest, for developers to reach consumers and have themselves be differentiated in ways that were not always easy. So, we will continue to do those things.
We are also invested a little bit farther ahead in things like app deep indexing, which we think if there are multiple shopping apps on your phone, rather than search through each of them, we might be able to give you the best link to the right app.
So, India is different in many ways, but these core principles of information discovery user relevance are all there. We will adapt the products that we create to be successful in the India market. That is definitely a market that we are all very keenly watching.
Q: How do you adapt our products to new innovations that you come up with? For instance now there is also Brillio that you are talking about, the operating system that has been created for Internet of Things (IoT) specifically. Similar to this many various products across the board, how do you adapt ad products with these specific new innovative products that you come up with?
Ramaswamy: My take honestly is that ads are not an answer to everything. When we create new products, the first goal of that product should be how do you create amazing user experiences. If and when ads are a natural compliment to that experience then you bring them in.
Q: However the new products - the futuristic products that you are looking at - is that something where you can put ads in?
Ramaswamy: It depends on the products and we definitely want to put the consumer value first. So, for example when it comes to wearables, you and I need to believe that it is important for us to have Android wear on our wrist. You and I need to believe that it adds value to our life - that it is very useful and then you can say if you are searching on that device and it actually is an ad that is the most useful result then it is okay for you to see it.
So, we definitely have this philosophy of putting the consumer experience first, making it absolutely great and then having ads as a compliment to that experience.
Q: India market is a fast growing market so over the next five years what is your outlook?
Ramaswamy: I think it is one of those cases where there is just an explosion of possibilities. India in many ways feels like the Silicon Valley of the mid late 90s.
Q: And that is the Prime Minister’s pitch.
Ramaswamy: Yes that is right, it is. The amount of energy there is amazing. I am very excited by things like the development of the local language web like the Hindi web for example. As you know hundreds of millions of people, they are not English speaking like you and me; we don’t want them to be left behind when it comes to the internet. So, it is just incredibly rich with possibility. I can’t think of a more exciting place.
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