Evolving New Age Media in Third World Countries

Oct 23^rd, 2010

This week’s blog will examine how new age media is evolving in the developing countries.

The western world is currently living in a digital age where everything right from news, work, entertainment to business are all done in the digital space. It is difficult to imagine life without the mobile and internet. For this week’s blog I want to focus my attention on the developing regions of the world and examine how they are advancing in the digital age.

A recent report by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), an arm of the United Nations suggests that 162 million of the total 226 million new internet users will be from developing countries in 2010 where internet users are growing at a higher rate. (http://www.dmwmedia.com/news/2010/10/20/global-039net-users-pass-2-billion-2010-61-trillion-texts-sent).

A peep into the communication industry in the developing regions reveals the following statistics.

Internet use in Africa increased by 2,357 percent in the last ten years and mobile phone usage jumped 550 percent between 2004 and 2009.

According to Ministry of Information Industry (MII), China which has the largest telecommunication market in the world has 420 million internet users as of June 2010, more than 976 million telephone (both mobile and land line) subscribers as of 2008 and an average 4.78 million new users register each month.

The Indian telecommunication industry, projected to be the fastest growing in the world has 706.37 million telephone (landlines and mobile) subscribers as of Aug 2010 and has the second largest market next to China. It is projected that India will surpass China’s subscription count in 2013 and the industry is expected to reach a size of US $77.61 billion at a growth rate of 26 percent, generating employment for around 10 million people. There are several 3G licensed operators and Apple’s iPads and iPhones are extremely popular devices in developing countries.

All this statistics indicate that users are definitely moving to the online and digital space to access information and carry out daily activities. They are catching up at a rapid pace with the western world. People get their news online, do online trading of shares, and spend a lot of time on blogs, twitter and social networking sties. Not just News media but Advertising is also undergoing sea changes. A recent article from Livemint Wall Street Journal analyzed how marketing has changed in India with the influence of New Age Media. The article talk about how consumers are invited to co-create content and be brand ambassadors for the products they endorse through interactive video, user reviews, online media and viral campaigns. Some example discussed were Huggies Diaper ‘Baby movie star’, HSBC Inc’s ‘talking point’.(http://www.dmwmedia.com/news/2010/10/20/global-039net-users-pass-2-billion-2010-61-trillion-texts-sent). I think New Age media has empowered the consumers and increased their voice and presence in the market.

However an interesting point to note with New Age media is that, the developing regions have not yet caught on to the concept of e-commerce or online shopping in a big way. People still prefer to go to the store and shop for products. There are issues of trust and credit card misuse that prevent them from going online to shop for products. That is a space that has huge opportunities for growth.

Another space that is yet to catch up with the West is the use of social networking sites for Marketing, Public Relations and Advertising activities. While personal social networking sites like Facebook and Orkut are still popular among the youth, these platforms have not yet been explored by the corporate sector as advertising or marketing platforms.

As a last observation, the flipside to these statistical figures is that- the rapid expansion in new Age Media is restricted to the urban areas. While the reach maybe more, the penetration is not deep. Several people in the poorer parts of the country still do not have access to internet or phones or even basic facilities like electricity and water supply. Clearly the digital divide within third world countries is huge and they have a long journey ahead to catch up with new Age Media.