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Google seems to be jumping into Africa with both feet showing very little hesitation and with what seems like an erroneous diagnosis of Africa’s web “problems”.
One of the company’s vice presidents for Africa, Carlo D’Asaro Biondo claims that ”The problem with Africa is that there isn’t enough information,” Really? For example, on the day that Africa’s first woman Nobel Prize winner, Wangari Maathai, died (25th September 2011) a quick trawl of Google revealed that news about her death was dominated by news agencies and online websites outside her home country of Kenya and indeed Africa. It took a few creative and thorough searches to come across Kenyan and more “authentic” African reports on her death. Most of these were buried far away from the first page of Google which is where most global web surfers get their news. It was not that news on Wangari Maathai’s death was not there; the news as it was reported by Africans in all its various facets and the websites that carried the touching stories are undervalued by Google and hence shunted to the “backpages” of internet search. As a result Wangari Maathai’s story was told to the world not by Africans but by Western online media through a set of Western lens.
“Google expects {internet phone} user numbers in Africa to grow from 14 million in 2010 to 800 million by 2015.” These numbers are huge and I suspect rather, than “worries” about African content online, the real motive behind Google’s push to Africa is to monetize (kerching kerching) as much of the African internet space as possible.
Time will tell if Africans and African content publishers are willing to play second fiddle to European and American publishers of stories coming out of their continent (Africa). The Chinese pushed back strongly on Google’s foray into China. Their stories to their own people at least, are not told by the BBC or CNN online but by their own publishers through their own search engines.
GEMMA Ware’s article on this topic sheds more light and provides detailed information of exactly what Google is up to in Africa. Here is an excerpt:
Google’s play on the continent is seductive and transformative.
It has launched dozens of projects in Africa. Its search engine is now available in 31 African languages, including Ewe, Sesotho, Wolof and Amharic. A $1.25m project will digitise Nelson Mandela’s documentary archives. Another pilot in Nigeria – the Get African Business Online project – is helping small businesses to build websites. Google runs mapping projects to help chart unmapped areas (see box page 22). It is also forging relationships with Africa’s more tech-savvy administrations. A web facility tailor-made for Kenya’s treasury is helping constituents monitor the implementation of infrastructure, education and health projects launched under the government’s Economic Stimulus Programme.
Google’s assault on Africa is coming at a time when the company is facing growing hostilities elsewhere. In late March, its plan to monetise 15m digitally scanned books for the Google Book Project was barred by a New York court. Meanwhile, the European Commission is probing whether Google is abusing its dominant position in online search by prioritising its own services.
More Here.
N Thompson
