Jooce in India: strategic philanthropy

Before delving into a discussion on Jooce in Indian context, let us consider some of the available statistics on Indian internet users:

• Less than 5% of India’s populations are online
• Home PCs at 3.5 million out of a total of about 210 million homes
• “India has the fastest growing Internet user base in the Asia Pacific Region" -IDC report
  
• The Internet & Mobile Association of India predicts that internet users will grow from the current 39 million to a 100 million by 2007. A majority of these users will be accessing the Net from cyber cafes

I have traveled and stayed in almost all of the big cities in India and have noticed the ever increasing crowds of the cyber-nomads around the cyber cafes. Most of them are young generations addicted to social networking sites .Due to this increasing number of net users, internet service provider Sify’s iWay Cyber Cafe Chain already crossed the 3100 mark in India.

Jooce, a Paris based startup is targeting those cyber-nomads. They are coming up with a flash based webOS and sharing platform. Jooce has got that X factor in its user interface.

Jooce could be used as a private online desktop with public file sharing capabilities. It is a online space to keep, view, listen to – and instantly share files, photos, music and video with friends.

Considering the large number of cyber cafe users, I can see a bright future of Jooce in India



I can feel the pulse of their marketing strategy just looking at their blog. The proper term to describe the strategy would be ‘grass root level penetration’.

I could not resist myself from quoting jooce’s blog where they say,

“As we prepare to launch private beta it is worth reminding ourselves that potential applications for internet platforms are not always obvious to those of us in the western world who own several laptops, PDAs or PCs.”

So true!

“If a community believes a product is going to contribute to the education of the next generation and create a brighter future for them, they will find the money to pay for it,” said Dan Shine, Director of the 50×15 Initiative, speaking in the “Connecting the four billion” session. “If you spend time in any one of several developing countries, you soon start to appreciate that it is standing room only in cybercafes. There are huge market opportunities that are largely untapped.”

I agree on the above “strategic philanthropy”. I wish if we can come up with a product something like jooce in our own. I hope some day Indian MNCs will realize the potentiality of Indian market and work on it rather then focusing on outsourcing work only.

Good luck jooce!