This story is from May 5, 2016

Snippets from a small town digital trail

A listing on an online review website by a kind tourist can boost business like no other. 3G data connection can be too expensive, and errant e-commerce websites can upset not just one customer, but make a whole village wary.
Snippets from a small town digital trail
The book, launched by union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, has the stories of 38 individuals presented as a photographic essay.
NEW DELHI: A listing on an online review website by a kind tourist can boost business like no other. 3G data connection can be too expensive, and errant e-commerce websites can upset not just one customer, but make a whole village wary. A group of six travelers found all this and more as they went around 15 locations in the country covering 3800 kms, collecing stories about how India uses the Internet.
The stories of the individuals were released in a book Digital Desh 2.0 on Wednesday in the capital.
The book, launched by union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, has the stories of 38 individuals presented as a photographic essay. Snippets with a quote and the way the individual uses a data connection tell the story. “Pehle 2G tha, ab 3G hai aur bol rahein hain 4G karwalo. Ek bar mein 100G la ke khatam karo (Earlier there was 2G, then 3G, and now they say get 4G. Just make it 100G and get it over with),” terracotta artist Jamnalal Kumhar from Rajasthan Molela village told the traveling team. Kumhar, says the book, uses Whatsapp to share design ideas with clients and artists, and believes variable data pricing should be allowed.
The travel project was started by Hyderabad-based startup NowFloats along with Google India. They call it an "anti-survey". The trip started on November 28, 2015 and covered Gurgaon, Agra, Gwalior, Mandola, Orchha, Khajuraho, Jabalpur, Bhedaghat, Bhopal, Indore, Mandu, Ujjain, Akola, Udaipur, Haldighati, Jodhpur, Pushkar, and Bassi. This was the second time the team undertook a project of this nature. The first “Digital Desh” trip was carried out in May 2015, where they covered 22 cities in 30 days.
Most stories are about small business owners finding customers online (a sector that NowFloats works in). Others had more everyday ordeals (a Gwalior man’s Google ID is changed by someone else, and he is left stranded on the information highway) and amidst comfort (a doctor in Pushkar who Skypes with his daughter and reads the Bhagwad Gita on his phone). There are even those who have felt the impact of the Internet without having used it. “I don't know who listed me on the Internet but since 2008, I've been getting only foreign customers,” says Raju, a bike rental service provider from Orchha in Madhya Pradesh.
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