How India's smartphone revolution is creating a new generation of readers and writers
-
0:01 - 0:03Look all around you.
-
0:03 - 0:08Whether you're in a subway, a park,
an airport, a restaurant, -
0:08 - 0:10even at this conference.
-
0:10 - 0:13All of you have a phone in your hands
or maybe in your pockets. -
0:13 - 0:15How many of you have a book?
-
0:15 - 0:16Very few, right?
-
0:17 - 0:19This is the sight that used to greet me
-
0:19 - 0:21every time I walked out
of my office block. -
0:21 - 0:25I was surrounded by a sea
of 20-something professionals, -
0:25 - 0:26glued to their phones.
-
0:27 - 0:30And not a single one
had a book in their hands. -
0:30 - 0:32And this used to make me
very, very frustrated. -
0:33 - 0:35I was a bookworm all my life.
-
0:35 - 0:37Books formed the milestones of my life.
-
0:37 - 0:40The first man I fell
in love with was Mr Darcy. -
0:41 - 0:46I first read "Harry Potter" when I was 21,
on a summer break from college. -
0:47 - 0:51And I remember the first night I spent
in a little flat I bought in my mid-20s, -
0:51 - 0:52very proudly,
-
0:52 - 0:55and I spent the whole night
reading "The Da Vinci Code." -
0:55 - 0:58And then I'm going to make
a terrible confession: -
0:58 - 1:01even today, when I'm low,
I get into bed with "War and Peace." -
1:01 - 1:03Don't laugh.
-
1:04 - 1:07But I was also like all those
people I saw around me: -
1:07 - 1:09I, too, lived on my phone.
-
1:09 - 1:12I ordered my groceries online,
-
1:12 - 1:16and soon my app knew
that I needed a monthly dose of diapers. -
1:16 - 1:19I booked my cinemas on my phone,
-
1:19 - 1:22I booked planes on my phone,
-
1:22 - 1:25and when I did the long commute back home,
-
1:25 - 1:26like most urban Indians,
-
1:26 - 1:28and was stuck in traffic,
-
1:28 - 1:32I passed the time on WhatsApp,
video-chatting my twin. -
1:33 - 1:38I was part of an extraordinary revolution
that was happening in India. -
1:38 - 1:42Indians are the second-largest
users of smartphones in the world. -
1:42 - 1:46And data prices have been
slashed so radically, -
1:46 - 1:50that half of urban India,
and even a part of rural India, -
1:50 - 1:53now have a smartphone
with a data connection in their hands. -
1:53 - 1:55And if you know anything about India,
-
1:55 - 1:59you'll know that half means
like all of America, or something, -
1:59 - 2:00you know, it's large numbers.
-
2:00 - 2:01(Laughter)
-
2:02 - 2:05And these numbers are just growing
and growing and growing, -
2:05 - 2:06they're exploding.
-
2:06 - 2:08And what they're doing
is empowering Indians -
2:08 - 2:11in all kinds of extraordinary ways.
-
2:11 - 2:14And yet, none of these changes
that I was seeing around me -
2:14 - 2:17were reflected in my world,
my world of books. -
2:18 - 2:21I live in a country the size of Europe,
-
2:21 - 2:24and it only has 50 decent bookshops.
-
2:24 - 2:27And Indians just didn't seem
to want to read for fun, -
2:27 - 2:30so if you look at all
the best seller lists in India, -
2:30 - 2:32what you'll always find
in the best seller list -
2:32 - 2:34is examine professional guides.
-
2:34 - 2:36Imagine if you found the said guides
-
2:36 - 2:39as the New York Times
number one seller, month after month. -
2:42 - 2:45And yet, the smartphone revolution
-
2:45 - 2:48was creating readers and writers
of a different kind. -
2:48 - 2:51Whether it was on Facebook or WhatsApp,
-
2:51 - 2:56Indians were writing and sharing
and reading all kinds of things: -
2:56 - 3:00terrible jokes, spurious pop history,
-
3:00 - 3:02long emotional confessions,
-
3:02 - 3:05dire [unclear] against the government.
-
3:05 - 3:08And as I read and shared these things,
I wondered to myself, -
3:08 - 3:12"Could I get these writers
and these readers, -
3:12 - 3:15could I turn them into my readers?"
-
3:15 - 3:18And so I left my plush corner office
-
3:18 - 3:22and my job as the publisher
of India's top publishing company, -
3:22 - 3:24and I set up on my own,
-
3:24 - 3:28I moved into a single large room
-
3:28 - 3:31in a cheap bohemian district of Delhi,
-
3:31 - 3:32with a small team.
-
3:32 - 3:36And there, I set up
a new kind of publishing house. -
3:36 - 3:40A new kind of publishing house
needs a new kind of reader, -
3:40 - 3:41and a new kind of book.
-
3:42 - 3:45And so I asked myself,
"What would this new reader want? -
3:45 - 3:49Would they prize urgency, relevance,
-
3:49 - 3:51timeliness, directness,
-
3:51 - 3:55the very qualities they seem to want
from their online services?" -
3:55 - 3:58Indeed, the qualities they seem
to want from life today. -
3:59 - 4:02I knew that my readers
were always on the go. -
4:02 - 4:05I'd have to fit into
their lifestyle and schedules. -
4:05 - 4:08Would they actually want
to read a 200-page book? -
4:08 - 4:11Or would they want something
a little bit more digestible? -
4:12 - 4:15Indians are incredibly value-conscious,
-
4:15 - 4:17especially when it comes
to their online reading. -
4:17 - 4:20I knew I had to give them
books under a dollar. -
4:22 - 4:25And so my company was formed,
and it was born, -
4:25 - 4:31it was a platform where we created a list
of stories designed for the smartphone, -
4:31 - 4:36but it also allowed amateur writers
to upload their own stories, -
4:36 - 4:38so they could be showcased
along with the very writers -
4:38 - 4:40they read and admired.
-
4:40 - 4:45And we could also enter
into other people's digital platforms. -
4:45 - 4:47So imagine this:
-
4:47 - 4:50imagine you're a receptionist,
you've had a long day at work, -
4:50 - 4:53you book your cab
in your ride-hailing app, -
4:53 - 4:54it shows up,
-
4:54 - 4:57and you get into your car,
and you lie back on your seat, -
4:57 - 4:59and you put on your app.
-
4:59 - 5:03And you find a set of stories
waiting for you, timed to your journey. -
5:04 - 5:07Imagine you're a gay young woman,
-
5:07 - 5:11in a relatively conservative city
like Lucknow, which lies near Delhi. -
5:11 - 5:14There's no way your parents
know about your sexuality. -
5:14 - 5:16They'd completely freak out.
-
5:16 - 5:22Would you like lesbian love stories
written in Hindi, priced under a dollar, -
5:22 - 5:25to be read in the privacy of your phone?
-
5:25 - 5:28And could I match readers
-
5:28 - 5:32to the events that were taking place
around them in real time? -
5:33 - 5:37So we published biographies
of very famous politicians -
5:37 - 5:40after they won big elections.
-
5:41 - 5:44When the Supreme court
decriminalized homosexuality, -
5:44 - 5:48an LGBTQ collection was waiting
on our home page. -
5:48 - 5:54And when India's Toni Morrison,
the great writer Mahasweta Devi died, -
5:54 - 5:57our readers found a short story by her
as soon as news hit. -
5:58 - 6:03The idea was to be relevant
to every moment of a reader's life. -
6:04 - 6:05Who are our readers?
-
6:06 - 6:09They're mostly young men
under the age of 30. -
6:09 - 6:11There's someone like Salil,
-
6:11 - 6:14who lives in a city where
there isn't a modern bookshop. -
6:14 - 6:17And he comes to our app almost every day.
-
6:17 - 6:19There's someone like Manoj,
-
6:19 - 6:22who mostly reads us
during the long commute back home. -
6:22 - 6:26And there's someone like Ahmed,
who loves our non-fiction -
6:26 - 6:30that he can read in a single sitting,
and that's priced very low. -
6:31 - 6:34Imagine if you're like a young techy boy
-
6:34 - 6:38in the India's Silicon Valley
city of Bangalore. -
6:39 - 6:42And one day, you get
an in-app notification -
6:42 - 6:45and it says that your favorite actress
has written a sexy short story -
6:45 - 6:46and it's waiting for you.
-
6:47 - 6:49That's how we launched Juggernaut.
-
6:49 - 6:53We got a very famous ex-adult star,
called Sunny Leone, -
6:53 - 6:56and she's India's most
Googled person, as it happens. -
6:56 - 7:00And we got her to write us
a collection of sexy short stories -
7:00 - 7:03that we published every night for a week.
-
7:03 - 7:04And it was a sensation.
-
7:04 - 7:08No one could believe
that we'd asked Sunny Leon to write. -
7:08 - 7:12But she did and she proved everyone wrong,
-
7:12 - 7:15and she found this immense readership.
-
7:15 - 7:21And just as we've redefined
what a book is, and how a reader behaves, -
7:21 - 7:23we're rethinking who an author is.
-
7:23 - 7:25In our amateur writing platform,
-
7:25 - 7:28we have writers that range from
teenagers to housewives. -
7:28 - 7:30And they're writing all kinds of things:
-
7:30 - 7:33it starts as small as a poem,
-
7:33 - 7:36an essay, a single short story.
-
7:36 - 7:40Fifty percent of them are returning
to the app to write again. -
7:41 - 7:44Take someone like Neeraj:
he's a middle-aged executive, -
7:44 - 7:47wife, two kids, a good job.
-
7:47 - 7:49And Neeraj loves to read.
-
7:49 - 7:52But every time Neeraj read
a book that he loved, -
7:52 - 7:54he was also filled with regret.
-
7:54 - 7:57He wandered to himself
if he could write too. -
7:57 - 7:59He was convinced
he had stories in his mind. -
7:59 - 8:04But time and real life had happened,
and he couldn't really manage it. -
8:04 - 8:08And then he heard about
the Juggernaut writer's platform. -
8:08 - 8:12And what he loved about it
was that he felt this was a place -
8:12 - 8:16where he could stand head and shoulders
equally, with the very writers -
8:16 - 8:17that he most admired.
-
8:17 - 8:19And so he began to write.
-
8:19 - 8:23And he snatched
a minute here, an hour there, -
8:23 - 8:25in between flights in airports,
-
8:25 - 8:28late at night, when he had
a little bit of time on his hands. -
8:29 - 8:31And he wrote this
extraordinary story for us. -
8:31 - 8:34He wrote a story
about a family of assassins -
8:34 - 8:37who lived in the winding
lanes of old Delhi. -
8:37 - 8:40We loved it, it was so fresh and original.
-
8:40 - 8:42And before Neeraj knew it,
-
8:42 - 8:45he'd not only scored a film deal,
-
8:45 - 8:48but also a second contract
to write another story. -
8:48 - 8:52Neeraj's story is one of the most
read stories on our app. -
8:54 - 8:56My journey is very, very young.
-
8:56 - 9:00We're a two-year-old company,
and we have a long way to go. -
9:01 - 9:04But we already, and we will
by the end of this year, -
9:04 - 9:08have about half a million stories,
many priced at under a dollar. -
9:09 - 9:12Most of our readers love reading
-
9:12 - 9:15and trying out authors
they've never ever heard of before. -
9:15 - 9:18Thirty percent of our home page reads
-
9:18 - 9:21comes out of the writing
that comes from our writer's platform. -
9:22 - 9:24By being everywhere,
-
9:24 - 9:28by being accessible and relevant,
-
9:28 - 9:30I hope to make reading a daily habit.
-
9:31 - 9:35As easy and effortless
as checking your email, -
9:35 - 9:38as booking a ticket online,
or ordering your groceries. -
9:39 - 9:40And as for me,
-
9:40 - 9:45I've discovered that as I entered
the six-inch world of the smartphone, -
9:45 - 9:47my own world just got very, very big.
-
9:48 - 9:50Thank you.
-
9:50 - 9:54(Applause)
- Title:
- How India's smartphone revolution is creating a new generation of readers and writers
- Speaker:
- Chiki Sarkar
- Description:
-
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TEDTalks
- Duration:
- 10:06
Show all