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Google Really, Really Wants To Bring India's Small Businesses Online (buzzfeed.com)

Posted by msmash on from the going-big dept.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Millions more Indians are now coming online, but India's small businesses -- including everything from decades-old mom and pop stores to neighborhood bakeries -- are lagging behind. Google wants to change that. At an event in New Delhi today, Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced a brand new program called Digital Unlocked aimed at helping India's 51 million small and medium businesses establish an online presence. Over the next three years, Google will hold 5,000 daylong classes in 40 Indian cities to teach business owners everything from the basics -- getting their business listed on Google Maps, for instance -- to advanced courses like running an online advertising campaign and measuring analytics.

4 of 36 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Fixed Headline by TWX · · Score: 2

    And don't forget that a lot, a lot of small businesses make more money than their respective tax agencies are told about. Under-the-table methods of buying and selling contribute a large part to the bottom lines of many small business owners, and those business owners are often not about to change that which would upset that applecart.

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    Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
  2. Google - GeoCities? by randomErr · · Score: 2

    Later this year, Google will also launch a tool called My Business Websites, which will allow any small business to easily create and manage its own mobile-friendly website using nothing more than a smartphone in up to nine Indian languages.

    It sounds like Google is just putting out an enhanced version of their Google Sites based on location. You pick a template and fill in a form with your information. Google then consumes it and automatically indexes your site.

    Also instead of putting on these classes couldn't they just do YouTube videos and their version of the Dummies Guide to Google?

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    You say things that offend me and I can deal with it. Can you?
  3. Should not be surprising by WindBourne · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Pichai has been killing off all of the advanced stuff at Google that made them into giants and is now moving various groups to India, in hopes of helping his nation. Basically, he is doing to Google, what most Indian CEOs/CIOs do which is move all work back to their nation regardless of the long term consequences to the company.

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    I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
  4. Right market for Google by unixisc · · Score: 2

    Given that Android is even more dominant in India than it is in the US, Google is targeting the right market. Small businesses are less likely to own computers, but more likely to own phones - be it Galaxies, Micromaxes, Karbonns et al. So if they come up w/ suites of mobile business packages that they can use, they'd be off to the races. Specially given that they seem to support at least a minimal amount of support for Indian languages like Hindi, Marathi, Kannada, et al

    Apple is hardly present in India and unlikely to grow, and Microsoft has pulled the plug on Lumias and PCs ain't selling much there. Looks like the perfect storm for Pillai's company