Well this doesn’t surprise me atleast but im sure a few TV guys might be surprised and probably would still be in denial mode saying "no ways this is global study of online users hence the 77%! And in anycase how many online users are there in India??"

For those interested in details A comprehensive survey in 12 countries (which includes India) of more than 7,600 young people between the ages of 16 - 29 shows that 77% of today’s online youth would sooner live without television than live without the Internet. China has the most devoted young Internet users, with 87% choosing the Internet compared to 13% favoring television.

Well take it or leave it but the above study just reiterates the fact that the internet is fast becoming the most preferred medium for the youth the world over.

And its not without some real reason. Internet is the most social medium that any of the other mass mediums of communication. It even leaves behind mobile when it comes to one to many sort of a broadcast and participation that can be achieved by blogs and social media.

For those who still feel otherwise a look at the top 50 sites for India would give an indication of where the youth’s interests lie. One would see sites like Orkut, Facebook, youtube, blogger and digg being popular among Indians.

One thing is for sure though the internet population and penetration in India might be low (if 40 million can be called low) due to various reasons but its growth prospects being higher and also the access to internet being uncensored and sometimes unmetered in Indian households would lead to a lot of Indian internet entrepreneurs being born in grad and undergrad colleges. I think the whole VC community is 2-3 years too early in India. I myself hope to see and probably create some really exciting internet startups in the next 3 years alongwith this teenage and twenty something generation of internet geeks that India will throw up in 3-5 years.

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