e-Content Is e-Commerce

The future of the company would lie on how dominating you are in
terms of creating and digitizing content

It is now fair to assert that technology is as
good as it delivers and it enables. It is extremely important for information
and communication technologies to turn around in terms of their impacts,
usability, and result in empowerment at a large scale, especially in third world
societies.

ICT is now empowering people to create digital
content-content which converts into economy and commerce like ebay, content
which empowers the mass with information and knowledge; content which enables
the mass to know their rights and finally content which convert the typical
Indian mass into consumer through global communication media.

It is interesting to observe how the developed societies
have been using the ICT to create digital content and reaching out to its own as
well as the global masses thus making all possible advantages. On the contrary,
people in developing and underdeveloped societies are yet to become ICT informed
citizenry. Taking the case of India for example, which is full of knowledge,
wisdom, skills, and human resource, the country is still lagging far behind in
creating digital content and thus have failed to take any reckoning advantages
of digital media to reach out to the masses on a large scale leave aside going
global.

e-Content Yardsticks:

• India vis-a-vis
  Others: Take a wild guess of the number of websites related to
  India on the Internet-it is less than a lakh; and the number is in
  thousands if you want to know the websites in Indian languages. So pathetic
  is the situation of India in terms of digital content creation that if the
  government does not make a focused effort on this, we will be a lost country
  on the virtual world. One would agree that the future of real world would be
  more virtual than the real.

The book e-Content:
Voices from the Ground—The Sequel 2.0
is a small yet serious reflection of this state of affairs in 38 countries
spread across each continent. This book is an overview of e-content scenario
vis-à-vis ICT and its implications in 38 countries.

Certain yardsticks should suit to this worldwide ICT and
e-content divided fraternity. One, take the idea of a density populated country
like Bangladesh and compare it with the African nation Togo, both at one of the
lowest levels of socio-economic indicators. Second, take India. One look at
it's domestic ICT infrastructure and e-content framework will give a good
understanding where we see India vis-à-vis a developed country, say Canada. The
third, hallmark could be when we see a vivid portrayal of e-content practices in
each continent. Make some comparison within this frame one can see similar gaps.
Cross understandings of e-content and ICT delivery makes one see the loose
strings in terms of government role, role of private parties, individual
initiatives and so on.

Asia's status on e-content couldn't be of any
consolidation.

For instance, from one ISP in 1996 the situation has
improved more than 100 times to 120 or more ISPs in Bangladesh of late. In 2.5
mn Internet connections, the net users figures stands at 5 mn, telephone lines
at 1 mn, mobile at 8 mn, PC penetration at 5 mn and websites at more than
10,000. By traditional yardsticks, neverthless, the country is not well equipped
in e-content network except through the radio broadcasts. Going by latest ICT
delivery, even TV, PC, Internet connections remain far short to serve the
world's eighth largest populated country of 140 mn.

The idea is not feasible to put India, China and Pakistan in
the same e-content basket. If we catch India in one front, the Chinese and
Japanese ICT frames need to be caught from different angle. China and India is
nonetheless interesting to compare, both crossing the billion mark in population
and considered to be emerging global economies. As compared to India's 5.45 mn
Internet connections in December 2004, China's figure is 103 mn for its 1.3bn
people. As compared to India's 23,000 approx figure of websites, China's
figure is 6, 77,500. With teledensity of 10.38 in India per 100 households,
China's figure is 423.8 per 1000 people. If these are ICT infra figures, in
other aspects like approaches, policies the two differ. China is already setting
up its own Chinese net addresses, which are not provided by the US-based ICANN
group, creating, in effect a regionalised internet over which Chinese
authorities have more control. E-content in China is now all-pervasive if
figures and statements are any indications.