Google to focus on Tamil web content

Publishers, bloggers and advertisers from across the state came together to participate in workshops on building successful businesses and generating income by creating Tamil content. 

Google also revealed how Tamil language users are among the most active on the Internet in India. Jaivir Nagi, head - Online Partnerships business, Google India said, “We have seen massive growth in all local language internet users in India. There are more local language internet users (234 mn) as supposed to English language Internet users (175 mn). It is projected that by 2021, 9 out of 10 netizens will be local language users, which means their numbers could touch around 530 mn users. From a population perspective, it is bigger than any country barring China. So, it made a lot of sense for Google to make products that could be used by local language users.” 

He adds, “In Tamil, we launched the Gboard (a virtual keyboard available in other regional languages), Translate, Knowledge Panels, Maps etc. We had recently launched AdSense, an ecosystem offering in Tamil, that should be able to influence the volume of online content in Tamil. Regional language content in areas like employment, healthcare, education has generally been low. We hope to change the scenario.” 

IBEF says India’s digital ad market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 33.5 pc to cross the Rs 25,500 cr ($ 3.8 bn) mark by 2020.