Business
Google goes low-tech to unleash Nigeria and Africa potential
Google officials declined to offer usage statistics for the text message service. But the service, advertised across billboards and buses in Nigeria’s largest city Lagos, could provide a way to bring the search engine into the lives of people otherwise untouched by it. More than half of the 44 million people who use the Internet in Nigeria access the web through smartphones, according to International Telecommunications Union. But that represents only a fraction of mobile phone users in Nigeria, a nation turned mobile-reliant by the collapse of the state-run telephone company which has left landlines almost nonexistent.
By getting the Internet to the simplest of handsets, Google is making a bet it can reach consumers it can ultimately make money from, as well as offer access millions otherwise wouldn’t have.
“The Internet is an enabler,” said Taiwo Kola-Ogunlade, a Google spokesman in West Africa. “I may not have as much money as you but I can have enough social capital to drive as much influence as you do.”
Google isn’t alone in trying to add low-tech features to its interface to broaden the Internet’s reach. There’s an emerging technology industry trying to increase access to basic and sometimes life-saving information on the web.
Sproxil Inc., a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company, has partnered with pharmaceutical companies to allow people to verify the authenticity of drugs before purchasing them. This comes as Nigeria is awash with counterfeit drugs.
Meanwhile, a technology startup called SlimTrader offers consumers in Nigeria and Senegal the ability to discover, preview and purchase goods and services from mobile phones that aren’t Internet-enabled.
SlimTrader’s CEO Femi Akinde said: “To reach a lot more people, you’ve got to reach them on the most ubiquitous device possible.”
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press
