India's Internet Language Tree

Large Digital Platforms such as Google, Microsoft, YouTube and Facebook have stepped up their efforts to engage the non-English speaking Internet user by speaking in multiple tongues for a few years now. However entertainment is still the driving force behind much of the user engagement. Now many are looking at ways to lock in the next wave of Internet users with language support for critical services, thereby increasing user stickiness and brand engagement on their platforms.

Nearly 500 Million Internet non-users are likely to go digital if Internet is provided in a language of their choice. In the next four years, Marathi, Bengali, Tamil and Telugu speaking Internet users will form 30 per cent of the total Indian language Internet user base, according to a Google-KPMG report on Indian languages (2017).

Internet platforms are turning polyglots not just because they see the rising importance of tapping into a user base that exists far beyond the top tier cities, but also brands are looking to ride their services to expand the customer base or improve employee efficiencies. Cab aggregator Ola has implemented language localization across the board to an extent that around 80 percent of the drivers use the language in the vernacular format. Google recently rolled out support for a number of languages on their proprietary keyboard or G-board.

Social Media has played a key role in driving the language train. Facebook has been actively prompting users to post content in their local language for years now. YouTube is collaborating with content creators across major cities like Hyderabad and Mumbai through fan events and creative spaces in order to encourage regional content.

There are 300 regional language channels on YouTube in India with over a million subscribers mark. Almost 70% music and video streamed online, 50% of messaging service usage and 50% news consumption across the country is done in regional languages. Globally, China managed to achieve the highest number of Internet users by using Mandarin script content, so much so that Chinese is the second most popular language on the Internet after English. In contrast, Indic content accounts for barely 0.1 % of the worldwide Internet content.

The potential for brands across the spectrum, not just advertisers and entertainers is huge. At present, barely 15% ticket booking, 17% online job searching and 21% banking services consumed online is done in regional languages. This reflects the restrictions of access of such critical Internet service in Indic, which in turn is limited Internet penetration in rural India and amongst the economically weaker section. Out of 481 Million Internet users in India almost 335 Million consume online content in Indic languages.

Bengaluru based technology startup Reverie Language Technologies, which provides Language as a Service (LaaS) solutions notes that a user’s online journey starts with content consumption, followed by engagement, which is followed by transactions or conversions. When the number of transaction-users grows, businesses will start looking into providing them with relevant localized solutions to solve their pain points. With 200 Million rural users coming online this year, companies will have to take efforts to help these users navigate through the digital world.

Economics of Privacy in Digital World

Information capture sits at the heart of important parts of the digital economy. The transaction in online services is radically different from what we usually encounter. We voluntarily pay in personal data rather than cash. This unique contract creates several complications as far as privacy goes.

Our relationship with companies like Google, Facebook and Amazon is at once and sour. These services are made irresistible because of their personalized user experience. The algorithms sitting at the heart of these companies guide you to what is most likely to interest you. But the world is now waking up to the harsh fact that the same process also raises privacy concerns as it encroaches into hitherto intimate areas of our lives.

Digital exchange – personal information for free access to platforms often means that privacy comes at a cost. Customers are better off sharing information about themselves with marketers because it makes life easier. Junk email or unsolicited phone calls that are an annoyance to consumers become less so when the company can target consumers better through data analysis.

However, the potential for personal data to be abused – for discrimination, manipulation and censorship is a huge cause for concern. The new world of large server farms plus algorithms that sift through data to seek patterns can sometimes make us the victims of targeted manipulation. So why do people have to share their data with the digital behemoths? The simple answer is that they choose to do so. In some cases, the consent to collect information is presumed, and the degree of privacy the user experiences is a function of self-help; you can disable some surveillance if you can figure out how. In other cases, customers explicitly agree to privacy policies that basically define the control they don’t have.

Since Businesses value the data more, imposing onerous “opt-in” rules is a significant transaction cost. This could jeopardize the ability of digital companies to provide services, and significantly degrade user experience. The efficient solution would be to award the initial ownership of data to the business, but let users opt out if they want to.

If you sell your car, the owner of the car can’t legitimately influence your life after the conclusion of the transaction. Personal data can be used to manipulate people in ways they don’t recognize at the time of sharing their data. This is something that current systems designed to facilitate the one-time transfer of personal information to the digital company and without the individual’s subsequent information to the digital company and involvement in decision making about the use of the collected data, don’t take into account.

Traditionally, private property has been the main barrier to privacy invasion. As monitoring and recording capabilities are embedded in our surroundings, there is a need to redefine private spaces that will not be infringed. The government and businesses should start by adopting privacy-by-design principles in their data accumulation practices. Governments and Supreme courts all over the world will have to rethink their stand in order to secure citizens privacy and control over their data and the meaning of such words as “property” and “consent” in relation to personal data sharing.

7 Ways to increase Mobile Engagement

Mobile users have traditionally been surfers rather than shoppers. Mobile conversion rates are still less than half of desktop conversion rates. Though there is an opportunity for e-commerce websites to increase their online sales through mobile, barriers do exist. Mobile checkout is less convenient than it is on desktop, and a majority of mobile consumption occurs in apps rather than websites.

With the mobile first index finally arriving and voice search continuing to climb in popularity, now is the time to re-optimize mobile e-commerce strategy to improve your bottom line. There are some ways one can improve mobile conversion rates.

Prioritize Speed - Google recently announced that mobile page speed would become a ranking factor in July 2018. Page speed is essential to your user experience and bounce rate. DoubleClick even released a report that found that 53 percent of users will bounce from a mobile site that takes more than three seconds to load.

Improve Checkout ­­- One of the main reasons people avoid making purchases over mobile is because the checkout process can be quite cumbersome. Besides having to type in credit card information using public WiFi with tiny keys, navigation becomes a huge issue. Primarily, you should attempt to limit the number of clicks it takes to reach checkout. This is one of the advantages of a mobile landing page. For your home website, a checkout should contain payment information, address and so on, all on one page, and make checkout and taps-to-action as painless as possible.

Scale down content and Images - Optimize your content management system (CMS) to serve specific content for mobile users. Write shorter headlines that are more likely to attract user attention through social news feed or on a mobile search engine results page (SERP). Provide clear call-to-action (CTA) phrases that are shorter, and leverage more power words. One way to organize content on your website is by using modular design.

Optimize Messaging for Mobile - Do your research on consumer behavior and habits over mobile. Mobile devices are much more than a device for shopping or Googling information to outsmart your friend; they’re part of many people’s identity. Adjust your text ads for mobile to acquire more clicks. Provide compelling benefits with simple descriptions.

Call to action with tactile reactions - It’s imperative that you include a call to action above the fold of your mobile webpage. Provide visual responses to each completed action on your website.

Remarket with SMS and push notifications - Use mobile devices capabilities to remarket to customers through push notifications and short message service (SMS) messages. Use push notifications to advertise time limited promotions to people every so often. This can even be used to drive ads to people if they’re near your business, using location based tracking. To convert leads leverage urgency and fear of missing out (FOMO) within notifications. This could include time-sensitive promotions or buy one, get one (BOGO) free offers.

The mobile search economy continues to grow and take over search. Mobile search and advertising are fairly limited by the devices themselves. This means you need to re-optimize your strategy using different messaging and alternative marketing strategies to improve your conversion rate.