India is a growing economy and has emerged as one of the leading client base for foreign investments including players from digital industry. Due to the massive growth of economy and increase in consumer demands, there is a need for speed as in how fast and prompt can a particular work could be accomplished. The growth of digital medium has hastened up the process of completing tasks and projects in less time and at minimal expenses. Internet has indeed benefited individual users and organizations by allowing anyone to have a digital identity in the world wide web. With the onset of web2.0 Social media usage got quite an optimum response from Indian audience. A country which hosts 81 million internet users (Internet World Stats) out of which 12 millions of Indian users contribute to a grand total of 500 millions of Facebook in the world. Besides India has reached over 200 million cellular telecom users and is expected to touch 500 millions (According to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI)).
Current Scenario:
Currently in India the emergence of digital medium or social media as you know it has become an integral part of daily usage for personal and professional communications. Internet access through broadband and wireless network has laid the basic foundation for the next generation to use technology as a mode of communication. The main feature of the digital media is that it allows any user to have an identity in the World Wide Web and allow them to opine their views and thoughts that could be read, seen or known by others. Digital medium has exclusively paved the way for concepts like backpack and citizen journalism. Apart from that media convergence employing multiple mediums into one single medium by any amateur user to reach out to the world is one wonder of this age. This enables corporate organizations to connect to their target audiences scattered across the globe. As of now in India the daily usage of social media is increasing every minute. Internet has become an important source of news for many people. This is indeed an interesting fact that traditional electronic and print media see this new media as a threat to their business. So far digital publicity and marketing is carried out in India by numerous organizations, agencies and even individuals. Social networking sites like Orkut, Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, Blogspot, and others have been implemented to reach out to people and get their feedback and opinions. Alternatively organizations have been benefitted by new media tools allowing them to keep a check on their rivals and potential competitors. One may imagine where we are heading next. It is expected that with the incoming technologies like 3G the internet reach is going to boom.
What lies ahead?
So far the reach of internet to Indian public is still less than 10% out of total population and yet India is still developing and striving to get used to new media technologies. With the onset of 3G technology there will be a boost in the use of digital medium through cellular networks which might replace the conventional broadband usage. The speed of internet networking will be increased with hi speed 3G technology enabling the transfer of data four times the speed of conventional broadband. The interactivity is expected to increase with improved visual and graphic qualities of videos and sounds and boosting in better sending and receiving capacity, thus resulting into mass convergence of medium in a divergent space. Very soon in the next decade the virtual reality will be transferred into physical reality with sixth sense technology. However cost would be involved including time and expenses to implement it in India. This is the age of transition from old technology world to a new technology world. As of now the scope of digital medium requires induction process to get the mass to get used to new media which is expected to become cheaper in the next decade. Very soon various organizations will be lacking efficient personnel to utilize the potentialities of using new media tools and might give scope of institutions providing digital media education. In coming decade major part of the population is expected to utilize the digital media through their cell phones and thus giving rise to next level of media convergence where one is able keep oneself entertained and informed about the current affairs going on around. Though traditional media cannot be completely erased off but the dependence on traditional media will comparatively be much lesser. It’s expected that the expenditure of such infrastructure will be quite cheaper and affordable. One can imagine that cost of accessing internet might be cheaper than cost of essential commodity like edible food .
