Prakat Posted April 14, 2013 Posted April 14, 2013 Baidu is "successful" because it caters to a captive market that is caught in a double knot. One is that of language with most Chinese netizens being literate only in their native language (how this is being flipped as a great positive is beyond my knowledge) and the second and killer knot is that of access. If India switched off google tonight, khoj.in would rise up the charts faster than you can type Anna Kournikova. So Baidu, while a good buy as a stock option relies entirely on this and the fact that it caters to such a large userbase. If Indian Railways went public tomorrow it would be the darling of worldwide stock markets. That however would be no indicator of its success either in quality of service or in comparison to other privately owned railroad organizations the world over.
Lurker Posted April 14, 2013 Posted April 14, 2013 Baidu is "successful" because it caters to a captive market that is caught in a double knot. One is that of language with most Chinese netizens being literate only in their native language (how this is being flipped as a great positive is beyond my knowledge) Somehow it always comes back to this, does it not? I wonder what seperates an average Indian from many other national citizens. Not going to derail another thread with language thingy (I do that all the time), but modern Indian citizen is the ultimate global citizen speaking global language and using global applications. Each time claiming them as one of its own, and then wondering why we lose influence lol. Not too many countries are worried about NOT knowing a 2nd language. Thats how Korea, Japan, Taiwan and now China have succeeded. And that's just Asian neighborhood. But of course we chase a different model. and the second and killer knot is that of access. If India switched off google tonight, khoj.in would rise up the charts faster than you can type Anna Kournikova. That is a very fair point and I agree to the whole access part but you are swinging to other extreme by suggesting that is all to this. Maybe it is a simple case of local application scoring with local population too? By the way fairly recently I was involved in the online marketing for a very small business (my elder brother's clinic). He was looking for enhancing online search capabilities. And it was surprising to see that most Indian agencies that enhance that put Google, Bing, Yahoo, Ask and others much ahead of Khoj and Rediff. I suspect we would be on the opposite side of should that signify anything or not. :winky:
Prakat Posted April 14, 2013 Posted April 14, 2013 I am not aware of your ongoing lingual peeve narrative. However, I did find it disingenuous how in your earlier post a point about Chinese knowing only their native language segued into what you admit is your personal agenda. As for local application scoring with local population, the point needs evidence as in how Baidu serves the purpose of an average Chinese reader better than Google.ch. In any case, remember we are speaking of a nation of a billion plus spread over a pretty big landmass, so the idea of "localization wins" that you are purporting is only from your point of view. Google's adsense has unparalleled reach and adwords offers the best bang for his rupee by far, so your brother would be well-advised to go with them, your nationalistic axe-grinding notwithstanding. :nice:
punjabi_khota Posted April 14, 2013 Posted April 14, 2013 The best engineers leave the country or go into management. Who the **** is going to create your killer apps ? Infy vaale ? I have seen plenty of bright people with their own next-age startups getting frustrated by lack of confidence in them shown by local VCs. Recently, there were a couple of them who started out in Bangalore, and moved to SF due to better funding opportunities there. So it is kind of a vicious cycle..time lagega todne mein. Personal example: 25% of all my batch-mates (class of 2005) are now involved in their own startups...I am sure the story is same for many other engineering schools...wheels are in motion..have seen some success stories already, but yeah, the tendency is to move to US at some stage..to make it really BIG.
Prakat Posted April 14, 2013 Posted April 14, 2013 @pk sometimes all that's lacking even with only average talent is drive. Take the story of quickmeme.com. It's the ubiquitous source of pretty much all image macros floating around the net today. It was designed by an Indian kid (SUNY) on commission (paid roughly $ 500) for a couple of shady brothers who did the hard work of creating the right buzz in the right places to ensure that it took off. If that kid had thought ahead and pulled a Zuck on them, and decided to figure out how to take it from his test server to making it a site with a million plus page views per day, he would be sitting on a mountain of cash. Instead, he just did his job and cashed out.
punjabi_khota Posted April 15, 2013 Posted April 15, 2013 One of the rare Indian IT product global success stories for those interested: http://www.sramanamitra.com/2013/03/07/indias-flagship-global-product-story-druva-ceo-jaspreet-singh-part-1/
Lurker Posted April 15, 2013 Posted April 15, 2013 I am not aware of your ongoing lingual peeve narrative. However, I did find it disingenuous how in your earlier post a point about Chinese knowing only their native language segued into what you admit is your personal agenda Nothing disingenuous about it. Since I invoked the Search Engine example I thought it was only fair to suggest where I was coming from. As for local application scoring with local population, the point needs evidence as in how Baidu serves the purpose of an average Chinese reader better than Google.ch. In any case, remember we are speaking of a nation of a billion plus spread over a pretty big landmass, so the idea of "localization wins" that you are purporting is only from your point of view. Where did you did read my posts as Baidu > Google.ch?? I cant remember saying that. But Baidu being #2 in the world is undisputed. So is Yandex at #4. India has none. That is all :winky: Google's adsense has unparalleled reach and adwords offers the best bang for his rupee by far, so your brother would be well-advised to go with them, your nationalistic axe-grinding notwithstanding. :nice: It doesn't really work like that. The adwords go beyond just ONE search engine. My point was none of the Indian companies were found in top search engines, even within India. Hope that explains better :winky:
Lurker Posted April 15, 2013 Posted April 15, 2013 The best engineers leave the country or go into management. Who the **** is going to create your killer apps ? Infy vaale ? http://www.indiancricketfans.com/uploads/emoticons/rofl.gif' alt=':rofl:'> I have seen plenty of bright people with their own next-age startups getting frustrated by lack of confidence in them shown by local VCs. Recently' date=' there were a couple of them who started out in Bangalore, and moved to SF due to better funding opportunities there. So it is kind of a vicious cycle..time lagega todne mein. Personal example: 25% of all my batch-mates (class of 2005) are now involved in their own startups...I am sure the story is same for many other engineering schools...wheels are in motion..have seen some success stories already, but yeah, the tendency is to move to US at some stage..to make it really BIG. Although I don't really buy this whole best engineers(or best of anything) leaving India, I do think a lot of great talent chooses to stay behind, I do agree with breaking the cycle thing in phases. What does baffle me though a bit is how easy Indians, even highly educated ones like yourself, bring out the infrastructure-ventur-capitalist-research etc. Sure they are absolutely important. NO denying there. And yet isnt it true that East European, Russian, Chinese, even South Asians programmers have created/uploaded tons of programmer without any of these resources? By the way I would be happy to be proven wrong on this one. Better Indian programmers rocking the world than me rocking internet board :nice:
someone Posted April 15, 2013 Author Posted April 15, 2013 Some of the points and counter arguments are valid. Imo, I guess the whole issue is that India as a country has failed to be proactive and in leading the world. Now, that includes both political, business and society as a whole. And this does not fit well with the perception of India being a global world leader. A more proactive, innovative approach is needed.
Prakat Posted April 15, 2013 Posted April 15, 2013 So what you are saying is that had Modern India forsaken English and had stuck to its native tongues, then we would have developed an indigenous search engine that would be in the top five purely in terms of traffic. And that would shore up our position among the most influential countries in the world like China and Russia. Therefore you are once again proved right in your long-held belief that English should not have been the language of choice for post-independent India. Adwords is a google service. It doesn't go beyond one search engine.
youngindia Posted April 15, 2013 Posted April 15, 2013 This I dont agree with. In my opinion the issue is two folds: young companies who do not have the same infrastructure as large companies come up with their under what conditions ?. they have a different socio economic environment and ecosystem which offers way more opportunities and acccess to the latest technology man.the ecosystem matters. so if young startups in america succeed. you will expect google from sub saharan africa or india? a country has a level of technology ,industry and education.especially the last 100 years germany and japan were destroyed by second world war. but did they lose their level of technology or education? no! if german companies are in the top 10 in so many catagories and japan has great electronic companies today , they have their more recent history to thank .And because their current levels are advanced in many respects what do we have? 150+ of deindustsrialisation by colonial rule and a 10% literacy rate in 1947. serena william can come out of poverty in USA and reach no 1 ..can she do the same in indian conditions and system? just because google comes out of stanford, its successor is going to come out of IIT?:hysterical: advanced countries provide way better acess to opportunities even for their poor apart from a multitude of advantages.no comparison. sorry, we are not going to match them out of thin air. its as absrud as expecting us to win 30 olympic golds in the next olyhmpics. or expecting our football team to be within top 50 by 2020.
youngindia Posted April 15, 2013 Posted April 15, 2013 a) We are lacking on innovation side.own unique disruption model. This is what Japanese and Koreasn car manufactures have done against American car and won handsomely.
Lurker Posted April 15, 2013 Posted April 15, 2013 under what conditions ?. they have a different socio economic environment and ecosystem which offers way more opportunities and acccess to the latest technology man.the ecosystem matters. so if young startups in america succeed. you will expect google from sub saharan africa or india? a country has a level of technology ,industry and education.especially the last 100 years germany and japan were destroyed by second world war. but did they lose their level of technology or education? no! if german companies are in the top 10 in so many catagories and japan has great electronic companies today , they have their more recent history to thank .And because their current levels are advanced in many respects what do we have? 150+ of deindustsrialisation by colonial rule and a 10% literacy rate in 1947. serena william can come out of poverty in USA and reach no 1 ..can she do the same in indian conditions and system? just because google comes out of stanford, its successor is going to come out of IIT?:hysterical: advanced countries provide way better acess to opportunities even for their poor apart from a multitude of advantages.no comparison. sorry, we are not going to match them out of thin air. its as absrud as expecting us to win 30 olympic golds in the next olyhmpics. or expecting our football team to be within top 50 by 2020. are you in the clouds or what? we are nowhere in their league. YOU need to cultivate a sense of evolution up the valoue chain. and understand its about a evolution to the high end from low end work. they had decades of high growth and gradually started producing high end work. japanese had a long evolution to modern technogy once they started modernising from the meiji restoration period helped heavily by western powers on the way. korea too evolved gradually to the samsungs of today step by step. read the evolution of companies like sony and samsung.see how sony moved up the value chain. our socio economic indicators at the moment are way too backward plus several other drawbacks like level of current technology,education levels ,universities and industry. I am not conversant with steel or hotels to go into specifics.it cud be a simialr situation like the advanced countries dominating swimming and african countries dominating long distance. Does it mean we can manufacture a F22 or produce a google? hell no. All i can say is don't expect canon cameras or samsing led's or a toyota from india anytime soon. No wonder our influence is on the wane :winky:
Sachin=GOD Posted April 16, 2013 Posted April 16, 2013 with a "leader" like MMS and a potential 'leader" like Pappu, we can hardly hope for any influence on the world stage.
Clarke Posted April 16, 2013 Posted April 16, 2013 I must say though, we were somewhat decisive under Shastriji & more so under Indira Gandhi. Forget the world, we could assume the top dog role in the neighborhood. I highly doubt 26/11 would go unpunished, Maldives would have a coup and Sri Lanka could carry on with its bloody business in the 70s/early 80s. Its not that we did great things then, but we weren't always on the backfoot.
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