India takes to Google Trends so fast

HYDERABAD: Inflation seems to be is worrying Mumbaikars the most in the world, followed by residents of Chennai and Singapore if one is to go by late-evening results on Google Trends, the tool that gives hourly reports of what is on the collective minds of people using the Internet search globally.
While the jury is still out on how accurate Google Trends actually is, the not-so-surprising conclusion could also be that Indians have taken to the Net like fish to water and more importantly use search much more than others in the world. More interestingly, they also want to find out what others are searching for.
“India has emerged next only to the US in the usage of Google Trends, which was launched in February in India without much fanfare. And that is not something unexpected,” said Amit Somani, product management head of search, consumer applications and infrastructure, Google India.
“We were surprised that in a matter of weeks India emerged within the top 2-3 in the world in the usage of Google Trends and in fact it is neck and neck with the US now,” Somani told DNA Money.
The reasons may not be far to seek. The Internet market in India, of about 50 million users, is young and eager to discover the cyber world. So search is growing as fast if not faster than the 15-25% growth that Internet usage in India.
“But then we want to make search universal and that has led us to explore other platforms to offer it,” added Somani, who kicked off a novel voice search service in Hyderabad on a test basis some two months back.
While Google.com and Google Local will continue to be the flagship search offerings from the search giant, voice and SMS could result in a shift in search usage patterns if early results are anything to go by. ”The voice search is currently being offered in three languages and we are doing pretty well,” said Somani, though he was reluctant to give out numbers.Quite understandably most queries are about the city and local businesses.
Unlike some other voice query services such as Just Dial, the advantage that Google has is that it is able to mine the humungous data that its Internet products throw up from business listings on properties such as Google Local, which is currently available in 25 Indian cities after Bhopal was added recently.
“People are discovering Google voice and SMS,” stressed Somani adding its success could result in a faster roll out to other cities in the country.
But it is anybody’s guess when these properties can be monetized and what kind of business model could emerge, he says adding it took over five years to make money even on a product like Google AdSense, which, by any measure, is a runaway success.
A business model for Google Trends and Hot Trends, the other product, is not yet evident. But in the meantime they continue to throw up new insights into collective human behaviour while on the Net.