Google Café: An Economic Model for Internet Evangelism in Latin America

[Nacho]

This last trip to Mexico City got me a really nice challange after being introduced with an amazing person, which most of us know him as "The Father of the Internet". I was very lucky to meet him.

Anyway, I wanted to share it with you guys to get some feeback. You're welcome to rip it appart if you like. The primary obtective is really to get a working model for growth in Internet access in Latin America (an most other parts of the world that have the same problem).

So here is the proposal background:

On Thursday June 1st, 2006 I had the privilege of having dinner with Dr. Vinton G. Cerf, Vice President & Chief Internet Evangelist for Google Inc., in Mexico City and was lucky to sit on the table right next to him. However, what got me to loose my sleep for the next few nights after this was not about the delightful conversation we had during dinner, but right after when I was first introduced to him that night by two very important people from Google Mexico and Google Latin America.

Dr. Cerf asked me, “How do you increase Internet users in Latin America?” I responded from the deepest of my gut thinking that he was looking for an answer related to Internet evangelism, so I said, “Give them computers and free Internet access, they will use search naturally on their own.” knowing the information I had learned on recent studies we have done was enough to back up my answer, but in reality this was not enough. I had to deliver this thought with adequate evidence to prove that what I was saying had fundamentals to make it a viable business model. This, as well as the gratitude I have for having a few minutes of one-on-one conversation with Dr. Cerf., is how the thought of doing this proposal got started.
Then to make the whole presentation also be worthwile, I thought why not try to change the rules for the better of all the people, like myself, which for one reason or another don't work at Google but love the company enough to participate in some way? I thought maybe this could change the Google Founder's Award policies, so I included a letter for Larry and Sergey that said,

I kindly ask that you take this proposal in consideration for the Google Founders' Awards even though I am a not a Google Inc. employee. There has been a lot of thought and market research put into this proposal, which I consider to be a great opportunity for Google, internet users, all the countries of Latin America, as well as any other country this proposal may apply to. This may be the beginning for entrepreneurs outside the company to partner with Google and share the growth success.

I appreciate your time to review this proposal and look forward to any feedback.
You are welcome to download the presentation, “Google Café: An Economic Model for Internet Evangelism in Latin America” (PDF | 4 MB):

http://www.ihispanic.com/Google-Cafe.pdf

I look foward to your thoughts.

[Chris Boggs]

Nacho I love this idea...hopefully the Googlers will too. Good luck! Great presentation. I particularly laughed when I saw the point on slide 36 about Cafe owners being penalized for users racking up fraudulent clicks. That would be funny...a whole new breeding ground for AdSense scammers, right under their noses.

[vipjun]

Acually I thought about such a model for China.

In many emerging economies such as India China and Latin America
A majority of the internet user base are in Net Cafe's rather than at home.

This exponentialy increases the effectivenes of "tool bars" that many companies are pushing these days as a marketing tool.
Having a tool bar installed across 50 computers in an internet cafe gives a much larger exposure than a user who downloads it in their home.

The Franchise theory may pull a winner.
A question though, will the regular internet and computer access be free to everyone? Or will it follow the present Internet model that charges a fee per hour of use?

[Nacho]

The Franchise theory may pull a winner.
A question though, will the regular internet and computer access be free to everyone? Or will it follow the present Internet model that charges a fee per hour of use?
Thanks! I hope so.

I believe that Internet should be free. Google seems to think so (http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2005/11/wi-fi-in-mountain-view.html
) as well, from what I can see.

[vipjun]

What about when the user in the cafe uses the computer for things other than search or google's programs which are usually supported by Ads

for example if someone wants to use it to play games.
Also I dont think charging a small but affordable rate would be a bad idea
This would reduce the likely hood that some1 would monopolize a computer for the whole day

[Nacho]

This would reduce the likely hood that some1 would monopolize a computer for the whole day
There are programs made to address this issue. Typical US libraries will make you do just that. I don't remember the details how, as I've only gone a couple times to the library for Internet before, but I know the function is there.

[Luis Morais]

Hi Nacho,

I find your idea a very interesting one. It was important to include the figures about linguistic barriers created with results in another language than Spanish.

Concerning the respondents of your survey, were they mainly composed by people in which classes (a, b, c, d)? I think this data should definitely be included in your presentation since, it seems to me, the proposal is for the benefit of classes c and d, although I recognise that many in those classes would not be able to answer about searching habits since they are excluded from the digital revolution so far. Perhaps a little more clarification on the target audience or audiences would be very useful.

I was a bit confused with the proposal for the location and appearance of these cafes. I imagine you were trying to pinpoint the appearance of the cafes instead of the location but the picture of the fake "Google" Internet cafe in the Middle East and the photos of the proposed Google cafe kind of make someone think that Google internet cafes will not be found where the big chunk of the digitally excluded population are nowadays. I find this important because when I was poor, I used to avoid flashy places because they made me feel even poorer.

I hope this may help somehow, congratulations for the idea!

Luis

[mcanerin]

You know, if Google isn't interested in this, it would be a shame if MSN or Yahoo didn't pick it up in order to expand their markets.

Ian

[Luis Morais]

You know, if Google isn't interested in this, it would be a shame if MSN or Yahoo didn't pick it up in order to expand their markets.

Ian

Definitely, starting with providing results that are linguistically relevant, i.e. in Spanish when one selects "Spanish", as Nacho's research diplomatically pointed out.

When Vinton Cerf was in Sao Paulo and spoke about Google's view of the future he pointed out that more content needed to be produced in the languages spoken in Latin America by Latin Americans and Google had an interest in this.

I wish they had read my question: so why aren't their products such as Blogger Brazil, Google Brazil and so on not in or serving, by default, results in the language Brazilians speak for example?

Luis