Frederick Noronha on Sun, 20 Oct 2002 00:14:07 +0200 (CEST) |
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<nettime> BOOKREVIEW: Looking at the 'Internet economies' of India, China.. |
LOOKING AT THE 'INTERNET ECONOMIES' OF INDIA, CHINA, JAPAN... This book, edited by an ex-IITian who is now a prolific evangelist of the Net, promises us "snapshots" about what the Internet is doing in five Asian countries and Australia. Using essays submitted by people who understand the issues -- from South Korea, China, Singapore and Australia. "This book," argues editor Dr Madanmohan Rao <madan@inomy.com>, is the first to chronicle and dissect the unique role that the Asia-Pacific region is playing today in the domain of the Internet economy, particularly during the current transition." Given the perfectionism with which he works, 'The Asia-Pacific Internet Handbook: Episode IV -- Emerging Powerhouses' edited by Dr Madanmohan Rao comes close to that aim. Besides looking at the current state of the Net in these five countries -- three from the Far East, India and Australia -- this book also has a general introduction that raises a number of interesting questions. For instance: Are Asian countries, companies and citizens lagging behind their counterparts in the US and Europe in Internet adoption, while yet leading in some pockets? How fast is 'e-culture' permeating through the region's corporate and government circles? And what is the human dimension of the Internet economy across the ASia-Pacific, especially in these times of the dotcom bust? Rao traces the growth of the Internet in Asia in four episodes -- the birth of the early computing infrastructure in Asia (1960-1980), the rise of the early Internetworks, the academic Internet, and the Asia-Pacific Network Information Centre (1980-1995), the rise of the commercial Internet and datacom deregulation and early wireless networks in Asia (1995-2000) and the rise of emerging Internet powerhouses of Asia, including the countries covered (starting c. 2001). "With a population of over three billion people, the 23 countries comprising the Asia-Pacific region represents a rapidly growing and lucrative segment of the global Internet market," argues Rao. But one could question how evenly spread the potential is. Can Japan -- leading the West in a number of trends -- be treated in the same basket as other lagging-behind parts of Asia? Dr Madanmohan Rao is one of those IITians who went West, returned back home early, and is going great guns in focussing on the promise of the Internet here. His background, as varied as his writings, have taken him to journalism (at the UN bureau of Inter Press Service), and even being vice-president of IndiaWorld at Mumbai. Still in his thirties, the Bangalore-based writer has dabbled in an eclectic range of interests, even while taking part in the Internet lecture circuit in some 40 countries across the globe. This, and writing skills untypical of the techie, make him eminently suited to put together this volume. Interestingly, his own e-mail address is digitalnomad@hotmail.com. An apt address for someone who roams the world like the current-day version of an experience-hungry sixteenth century conquistador who has suddenly discovered a whole new world out there. (His story of how he shifted from a geeky, techie subject to studying the politics of communications -- thanks to the 1990-91 Gulf war and the type of coverage it kept getting particularly in the West -- is surely interesting... But that's perhaps off-topic here.) For this book, one rushed straight to the chapter on India, which begins with an enigmatic quote -- "The orange that is squeezed too hard yields bitter juice. Indian proverb translated from Kannada." This chapter builds interesting pen-pictures, using a journalistic style to which Madan is no stranger. For instance, there's Ajit Balakrishnan, CEO of India's leading e-commerce site Rediff.com started by an ad agency of a similar name. Working out of Mumbai, Balakrishnan replies to "a thousand e-mails a day" from 3 to 6 am ... even before the sun rises. Madan tackles the issues that matter -- connectivity, content, community, capacity, culture.... ("In terms of content, the number of websites focusing on India is estimated to be around 250,000, mostly in English, followed by Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, Gujarati and Kannada.") This is information. This reviewer struggled to find some 2001 websites, when putting together a compiliation of the same at the turn of the millenium (See http://www.bytesforall.org/i2001.html) Even a cursory glance throws up some interesting snippets: * India is an extremely content-rich country with a very free press climate, unlike some of its other Asian counterparts: the news, culture, entertainment, sports and medical knowledge base of this country can easily sustain dozens of portals and vortals for a content-hungry consumer marketplace consisting of domestic users, NRIs (non-resident Indians, numbering 20 million in over 120 countries around the world), international businesses, and enthusiastic Indophiles. * The Indian PC market differs from other Asian markets in more than just its low rate of PC penetration. It is dominated by local assemblers rather than national vendors like Legend in China (which enjoys a 26 per cent market share) and Samsung in Korea. * Indian PC shipments, according to IDC, were worth about 1.88 million in 2000-01, but will grow to a fifth of the Asia-Pacific sales (excluding Japan) by 2004. In 2004, Indian PC sales are expected to be 7.5 million. (Will it really?) * For a country of a thousand million-plus, just 0.7 million modems were sold in 2000-01. * India is likely to experience, perhaps as no other country has, an explosion of cybercafes in the new millennium. Many people can afford Rs 30 (around 70 cents -- now the figure is one-third that) to check their e-mail for half an hour every few days in the local cybercafe instead of owning their own PCs and Internet accounts. * Many Internet consumers in India are beginning to derive significant local benefits by accessing local content on the Web; sub-national content is beginning to appear on sites dedicated to specific cities and states (e.g. Goa, Kerala). Other chapters in this book, as mentioned above, deal with the Internet in Japan, South Korea, China, Australia and Singapore. Madan writes to shape opinions and mould the future shape the new domains like the Net could take on. He obviously cares about who reads his output; and is one of those using his skills and knowledge to network people and help find solutions that make a difference. His last co-authored book (with Osama Manzar and Tufail Ahmad) was The Internet Economy of India, 2001. Reading this book was like browsing a website -- it was catchy enough as a website, and as informative as one would expect a book to be. This new book is both informative and interesting. It's published in 2002 by Tata McGraw-Hill. See www.tatamcgrawhill.com/digital_solutions/madan Other contributors are IDG News Service's Tokyo correspondent Martyn Williams, Softbank Research (South Korea) senior analyst Jin Young Kim, ZDNet Korea Inc general manager Ms Jihee Nam, telecom consulting firm BDA China managing director Duncan Clark, and co-founder of Editor.com Australia Grant Butler. ------------------- The Asia-Pacific Internet Handbook Madanmohan Rao (Ed.) Tata McGraw-Hill 2002 ISBN 0-07-044519-2 Pp 370. ENDS -- Frederick Noronha * Freelance Journalist * Goa * India 832.409490 / 409783 BYTESFORALL www.bytesforall.org * GNU-LINUX http://linuxinindia.pitas.com Writing with a difference... on what makes *the* difference # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net