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The next wave of growth in subscriptions will come from semi—urban and rural areas. Today, the penetration of mobile phones in urban areas is already 100 per cent while in rural areas it is only 23 per cent,” it said.

- The Hindu : Business / Industry : Rural India to drive mobile phone market growth: report

84% of rural India are unaware of Internet

Although, Urban India has adopted Internet in large numbers (especially younger generation), Internet penetration in Rural India is close to zilch. Even though Government is making huge efforts to increase the penetration, it seems to be failing miserably.

According to the survey conducted jointly by IAMAI and IMRB, about 84 percent of people in rural India are not aware of Internet. The organizations believe that this lack of awareness is the primary reason that has prevented internet take-up in rural India.

The research further found that 38 percent of rural inhabitants feel no need for internet access. Further reasons for not using the internet include lack of an internet access point (31%), unfamiliar with computers (31%), no computer available (28%), need for guidance (28%), no electricity (22%), and not being able to afford internet (10%). At present, common service centers and cyber cafés serve as the primary mode of accessing internet, with more than 70 percent of the rural population accessing the internet this way.

- Telecom Tuesday: Tata Tele growth, BSNL MNP Implementation, Rural Internet Penetration

And they emphasise what has been evident for some years: that professionally generated content – in news or entertainment – is what people are willing to pay for. YouTube gets the maximum traffic and revenues from professionally generated content. That is why the hurry to sign on TV channels and film companies as partners. Ditto for Zite or Flipboard, apps that aggregate from a variety of newspapers and magazines.

- Vanita Kohli-Khandekar: Can apps help print survive?

Into this gloom came the iPad in 2010. The tablet computer and its copies have sold over 30 million pieces so far (just over 150,000 in India).

- Vanita Kohli-Khandekar: Can apps help print survive?

Will apps do for the print media what the internet hasn’t? The £347 million Economist Group had more than three million downloads of its app to smartphones and tablets last year. The Financial Times, a sibling of The Economist, had one million downloads of its app since launch in July last year. The New York Times, The Guardian and dozens of other large newspaper groups are reported to have good numbers on app downloads. In India, almost every major media brand has an app or is creating one, though the numbers on downloads remain small.

- Vanita Kohli-Khandekar: Can apps help print survive? - Jan 17, 2012

“More accurately, email has become a convenient mechanism for issue-avoidance. It is easier, quicker, less stressful, and less confrontational to have critical or challenging issues sent over email versus a live one-on-one with a counterpart.”

— is email removing collaboration & making us dumber? - nidhi

- Don’t Send That Email. Pick up the Phone! - Anthony Tjan - Harvard Business Review