Towards the end of December IAMAI released a Vernacular Content Consumption Report. The report the last released by IAMAI in 2008 studies the consumption patterns of vernacular content, the potential and the barriers to consumption prevalent in the Indian digital (especially web) space. Besides the Internet the report also carries a heavy analysis of the Regional content consumption by Indians in general and also involves a specific comparitive study of Television and Internet with regards to this subject.
The report is essentially divided into 6 chapters -
- Patterns of Vernacular Content Consumption
- Indian Language Content on the Internet
- Examining Parallels Between Television and the Internet
- Vernacular Capabilities on the PC
- Barriers of Vernacular Adoption
- Discussion
The report essentially is a platform to discuss the adoption of Internet and Communication Technologies in India, and focusses primarily on how the regional content issue widens the gap between urban and rural adoption of ICT. The comparision with traditional media is primarily to reflect the change in adoption levels of medium like the Television once regional content began streaming over them. And therefore suggests that perhaps a similar push is needed on the Internet as well to ensure better adoption of the medium across the country. Better adoption of the medium obviously means more users and therefore a larger bouquet for business initiatives on the medium to target.
The report therefore primarily can benefit content publishers on the web and funds sources looking for scale and scope of the web media in India.
Key highlights of the report includes:
- The consumption charachteristics of the Indian populace towards media in general is localised and regional in nature. English seems the less preferred choice among the unadopted mass.
- A potent mix of infrastructure, application and content is the key to unlock widespread adoption of ICT, if patterns of radio, television and print is to be followed.
- There is difference between the usage and the demand for regional content on the web. The reason for the difference being lack of infrastrucutre as wella s existing regional content for those demanding vernacular content.
- Demand for predictive translation initiatives is required signifies requirement of R&D to popularise regional content adoption.
The report can be downloaded from http://www.iamai.in/reports1.aspx
