Google has taken the step to educate people in India about the Internet, and usage of which can help in improving their lives, and how they can enjoy the tech-filled world and be smarter than before. Its called The Internet Bus Project and is currently running in South India.
The Internet Bus Project is an attempt to educate people about what the Internet is, and how it may be beneficial to their lives, by taking the Internet experience to them through a customised Internet-enabled bus, which will travel to several towns and cities across India.
The bus is designed to make a simple introduction to the Internet for a new user. With a focus on the four themes of education, information, communication, and entertainment, the Internet Bus will be loaded with useful and informative content in English and Tamil. We’ll showcase how the Internet can make everyday life simple through services like search, email, social networking, maps and others.
Here are the places where in the 40 days, the Bus would be traveling and trying to educate maximum mass that they can on their way -
03 Feb Chennai, 05 Feb Vellore, 06 Feb Krishnagiri, 07 Feb Salem, 11 Feb Erode, 12 Feb Tirupur, 14 Feb Coimbatore, 18 Feb Dindigul, 19 Feb Madurai, 23 Feb Tirunelveli, 25 Feb Nagercoil, 27 Feb Tuticorin, 02 Mar Pudukkottai, 03 Mar Tiruchirappalli, 06 Mar Thanjavur, 08 Mar Kumbakonam, 10 Mar Neyveli, 12 Mar Cuddalore, 13 Mar Tiruvannamalai.
This has been a good initiative by Google, which inturn would not increase the popularity of Internet but also Google would be more preferred to any other website on the web in India. Here is a post in Google India Blog which shows more information.
Check more about the project in Google.co.in
what abt Mumbai
Google brand building again! It seems like a really cool exercise, with future users already linking Google to the internet as their first experience of it.
Cool concept, but wouldn’t they really need more than a 100 buses to do this project any justice? It will be interesting to see how long the lines are at the bus.
Wild guess. I think they’re targeting the wrong audience.
From what I’ve heard Yahoo is used more in India… maybe that’s why… getting the newcomers.
@Puneet, i think after the South India is entirely traveled and covered, then the project would move on the Central India and other parts of the country, but as of now there is no signs of Bus moving towards Mumbai.
@SEO Tips South Africa, Yep google has always tried to, and have been successful of launching different ideas which are helpful for the end users and also have helped in branding of the Search engine company.
@trap, I would include the concept Word of Mouth here, as although there might be few people at the bus to see what it is, what it is for and how it is helpful, but in near future, people would surely talk about Google doing such kind of things, providing education to people etc. and this inturn would be very helpful.
@Rajbir D, yes Yahoo is majorly used as its the best and most used mail service and homepage in most of the basic computers, and so Google is not very much popular except for people who are into searching for something.
Google is actually targeting the right people and trying to make them shift from Yahoo to Google for their day-to-day internet usage.