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A Mumbai train commuter who witnessed an accident earlier this month, turned to his smartphone to ask neighbors how to help a bleeding victim. The answers flowed instantly. Take him to the trainmaster at the next stop; ask the ticket collector for first aid; call 138 for emergency assistance and so on. Shortly after, the commuter had a happy ending: the injured party had received medical attention.
That happened in minutes on Neighborly, the hyper-local social network unveiled in India this month by Google's Next Billion Users program. The neighborhood network – available in Mumbai and soon extended to other cities – allows people to share local expertise and crucial information with others in the neighborhood. The recommendations from the crowd vary widely: kitchen cabinet manufacturers, gas stations that repair electric scooters, cricket ticket sellers, gardening supply stores and so much more.
With nearly half a billion Indians using smartphones, Google sees an opportunity to become a one-stop shop for research, social networking and payments. "After missing the latest wave of social, Google is trying to use its platform to become a major player in these areas," says Satish Meena, forecasting analyst at Forrester Research based in New Delhi.
Google has long aspired to become the must-have platform in India, where its rivals Facebook Inc. and its WhatsApp messaging service have already amassed a huge user base and Amazon Inc. spends billions on e-commerce. Google wants to bring hundreds of millions of Indians online and create products that appeal to a diverse population, regardless of social strata, language spoken or the type of device used. In 2016, the company began offering free Wi-Fi in the country's largest railway stations and has since expanded to 400 locations. Last year, California-based search giant Mountain View launched a payment service called Google Tez. The Google voice-activated assistant is already available in eight Indian languages.
In the era of fake news, trolling and privacy protection, the Neighborly application, which lasted two years, could help Google use Facebook and WhatsApp. Caesar Sengupta, who heads the Next Billion Users initiative, said at the unveiling of the app that it would help people get accurate information without participating in group discussions that "are getting louder and louder." As WhatsApp messages.
Proximity users can browse, ask, and answer questions without sharing any personal information. The application only displays a first name while keeping the phone number, full name and other private information. The profile picture of a user can not be enlarged or stored, unlike other applications. When registering, everyone agrees to ensure the safety of the community and to refrain from posting inappropriate messages or spam.
The push of India is part of the aggressive global expansion of Google. The company recently invested $ 550 million in the Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com Inc. and a smaller amount in the Fynd in India, which has allowed it to position itself online in the world's most populous countries . Now, he polishes social and messaging, where he has had limited success with Google+, Hangouts and Allo.
"The general social networking is dominated by Facebook and peer-to-peer messaging by WhatsApp," says Brandon Verblow, a New York-based analyst at Forrester Research. "However, opportunities for local networking have not yet been fully exploited."
Google India is already generating about $ 1 billion in advertising revenue, and the app opens a new path for potentially selling high-priced targeted local ads while gathering more user information that can be used to sell ads on other products. "If Google can evolve Neighborly, it could become a big revenue generator," says Verblow.
Google researchers have spent two years traveling university campuses, bus stops, neighborhood parks and lounges to build and fine-tune the application. They met the same theme again and again in the localities of Delhi, Jaipur, Mathura, Ahmadabad and Mumbai. As in many countries, the network of centuries-old neighbors collapsed as people moved to find a job or college. Add in long hours of work and commutes, and no one knew their neighbors. "Life is happening near home for most people as urbanization reshapes cities in India and Asia, Latin America and Africa," says Josh Woodward, group product manager for the United States. Next Billion Users team.
After creating a beta version of the app, Google testers walked door to door to ask the Indians to install it, and then returned to sit in the salons to gather their comments. When women said that they did not want foreigners to store their photos, Google decided that users could not enlarge the photos or save them. People did not want intrusive interactions with others, so there is no direct messaging feature. For the location, Neighborly displays the name of the neighborhood. The application has a size less than 7 MB, which makes it easier to use on older or cheaper smartphones.
Neighborly strongly relies on what Google has learned from its search offers and digital assistants. One third of searches in India are already activated by voice. Thus, Neighborly allows users to ask questions orally in their local language. The app provides useful questions like "Where can I find …" "Who is the best …" or "Can you recommend …" to avoid the need to type.
The application uses familiar social networking techniques. In the same way that Uber passengers can rate drivers, neighboring users accumulate credibility scores depending on how others rank their responses. The highest ranked answers are at the top. Similar to Facebook, Q & As can be bookmarked for later, and users can follow a question (but not a person). Users can swipe left or right on the 15 questions and answers most used by the application, helping the basic algorithms to understand the needs of each person. People whose answers are constantly voted receive points, which is similar to LinkedIn's references.
Google executives were quietly delighted when users likened favorably to the ancient Indian Karma concept, whereby actions determine a person's fate.
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