Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Tens Of Billions Of Hours Available

Image representing Microsoft as depicted in Cr...Image via CrunchBase

Say there are seven billion people on the planet. Of those one billion are online. Each human being has only 24 hours in each day. So there are 24 billion hours available on any one day. But maybe not. People also like to sleep, eat, work, do other offline things. Considering Microsoft continues to make a ton of money through Windows and Office, we might have to lump screen time with online time.

24 billion hours - (eight billion hours for sleeping + eight billion hours for working + four billion hours for other) = four billion hours

Image representing Google as depicted in Crunc...Image via CrunchBase


But then there are hundreds of millions who partly or fully work in front of a computer. And there are other things that compete: TV, movie theaters, walks in the park.

But even with the screen time space, you are probably going for your niche. You are not competing with Microsoft for word processing probably, or Google for search, or CNN for news, or Facebook for social networking, or Twitter for, well, twittering.

Image representing Facebook as depicted in Cru...Image via CrunchBase



There are only so many human beings with only so much time for your particular niche.

How to stretch what is available?

The most obvious are two. One, get more people online. A billion times 24 hours is a billion hours. Seven billion times 24 hours is 168 billion hours. And you try and turn more and more of those people into part or full knowledge workers.

Those two would be an ongoing process.

Image representing Twitter as depicted in Crun...Image via CrunchBase


There is far saturation. What if everybody possible is already online, and most are knowlegdge workers already? You would have hit a finity. There is a near saturation. What if it will take too long to bring everyone online, too long to eradicate poverty and turn most people into being knowledge workers? Then for all practical purposes you have hit a finity already in the immediate term.

People will gravitate to services that better organize their information for less time and money, preferably little time and no money.

The way we serve ads will evolve with such shifts in attention. Attention is p

Cnn.Image via Wikipedia

rime currency.

The number of hours might be finite, but there is a certain infinity to the human mind and its possibilities. There will be a constant churn of content creation, search and organization, presentation. We will keep finding ever more new ways to perform those basic functions.

The web will keep trying to approach the human mind.

From The Google Blogs

Introducing the Google Chrome OS
Google Chrome OS - FAQ

Special Site for President Obama's visit to Ghana
Language: a lens for experiencing culture & technology
Google SMS to serve needs of poor in Uganda
University Outreach in Kenya
New in Gmail: Inbox preview
New African countries live on Google Maps
Launching Google Suggest in Swahili
Launching Google in the Benin and Central African Republic
Making Google Map Maker more Accessible and Useful
Google University Research Awards for Africa
Google Maps launches in Kenya
Launching Google in Madagascar
New Maps for Senegal, Zimbabwe, Mauritius and Seychelles
Making information more accessible in Kenya
The Literacy Project speaks French too!
Local Search for Maps of Nairobi
Search in new African languages
Trophy giving time!
Ethiopic Transliteration in Google suggest
Mapping Barack Obama's hometown of Kogelo
Making information more accessible in Ghana and Nigeria
Power to the People or Power from the People?
Technical Internship Opportunities at Google EMEA
Learn more about Google's Education Resources
Working towards "One Africa, One Health"
Launching Google in Sierra Leone
Introducing Google.org Geo Challenge Grants
YouTube Users Responds to Crisis in the DR Congo
Why Local Content Matters
One Water Africa trip
Running the Nairobi Marathon
Personalized gadgets for South Africa
Information Poverty
BarCamp Africa
Let's Map Africa!
South Africa's rubik's cube comes together
New Mozambique page live
Congratulations to the gadget competition winners!
Goog - al - Jazaer!
Google invests in O3b Networks
Looking for a few good men and women
New Google homepage for Tanzania in Swahili
A conversation in Kisii
Google News launches in 9 African countries
Announcing a new investment in Kenya
Bravo Vega! Winners of Global Online Marketing Challenge
Teaching iGoogle at East African universities
Partnership with the Zawadi Africa Education Fund
South African student wins open source prize, visits Googleplex
Google Johannesburg celebrates World Environment Week
Programmers, get ready, get set
East Africa gadget competition
Covering all things Google in Sub-Saharan Africa

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