Tag: #google

  • Pakistan’s e-commerce market size increases to Rs96bn

    Pakistan’s e-commerce market size increases to Rs96bn

    Pakistan’s e-commerce marketing size has increased to Rs96 billion in the first quarter of the financial year 2021 as compared to Rs71 billion in the first quarter of the financial year 2020.

    This was informed during the fourth meeting of the National e-Commerce Council (NeCC), chaired by Abdul Razak Dawood, advisor to Prime Minister (PM) on commerce.

    NeCC is a body of representatives from the public and private sector, established under the National e-Commerce Policy approved by the cabinet in October 2019.

    According to officials, the NeCC discussed operationalisation of cross border e-commerce procedures, incentives to promote e-commerce, ways to introduce international payment services.

    Furthermore, deliberations on the mercantile stock exchange, digital on-boarding services, reports of the consultative committee on Women Economic Empowerment (WEE), e-commerce business facilitation portal, consumer protection councils, availability of broadband to remote areas, Trade Development Authority of Pakistan (TDAP) a digital transformation process, and collaboration with Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority (SMEDA) on e-commerce related matters were also discussed.

    The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) informed the meeting on the legal framework updates, including e-commerce rules regarding the mechanism of imports goods clearance, and return of goods policy.

    The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) also gave a detailed presentation on efforts to promote cross-border e-commerce.

    The National Institutional Facilitation Technologies (NIFT) informed the meeting that they are developing a payment solution for cross border/international payments in collaboration with the SBP through which people outside of Pakistan will be able to pay through Paypal, Google Pay and Apple Pay. Payments within Pakistan will be processed through the help.

    NIFT said that the payment system was to become functional by the end of 2020 but the diversion of efforts towards COVID affected the plan badly.

    Meanwhile, the sub-committee on financial inclusion and digitization shared its progress of conducting three webinars for freelancers, mobile wallets, account-based solutions and card-based payments.

  • Google reportedly lists Mahira Khan as Zara Noor Abbas’ mother

    Google reportedly lists Mahira Khan as Zara Noor Abbas’ mother

    Google has reportedly listed Mahira Khan as Zara Noor Abbas’ mother.

    While it is unclear why and how it happened, a screenshot of search has gone viral on social media. Meanwhile, in reality, the Khamoshi star is the daughter of Asma Abbas and niece of veteran actor Bushra Ansari.

    Later, the information on Wikipedia was corrected with Asma listed as Zara’s mother.

    Goes on to show that even Google and Wikipedia can mess things up and sometimes give incorrect information.

    Earlier, Google had listed Esra Bilgiç as Yasir Hussain’s mother.

  • Remove ‘sacrilegious content’ or face legal action, PTA tells Google and Wikipedia

    Remove ‘sacrilegious content’ or face legal action, PTA tells Google and Wikipedia

    The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has issued notices to Google and Wikipedia over the dissemination of “sacrilegious content” on their platforms, saying a legal action will be taken in case of a failure to remove the content.

    In a press release shared on its Twitter handle, the PTA said that the action against the tech giant and the online encyclopedia was taken after “complaints regarding misleading search results associated with ‘Present Khalifa of Islam’ and unauthentic version of Holy Quran uploaded by Ahmadiyya Community on Google Play Store” were received.

    Calling it a matter of a “very serious nature”, the PTA approached Google with the directives “to immediately remove the unlawful content”.

    “The platform has been issued with the notice under Removal and Blocking of Unlawful Online Content (Procedure, Oversight and Safeguard) Rules 2020 (“Rules”) to remove the sacrilegious content to avoid any legal action by the regulator,” it added.

    According to the PTA, people also registered complaints against Wikipedia for “hosting of caricatures of Holy Prophet (PBUH) and dissemination of misleading, wrong, deceptive and deceitful information through articles portraying Mirza Masroor Ahmad as a Muslim”. 

    “After extensive communication on the matter, Wikipedia has been finally served with the notice to remove the sacrilegious content to avoid any legal action,” the statement added.

    “In case the platforms remain non-compliant, PTA shall be constrained to initiate further action under Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act 2016 (PECA) and Rules 2020,” said the regulatory authority.

  • Facts that you did not know about Pakistan’s digital scene

    Moiz Sayed, who is Google’s Industry Head for Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka has shed light on what brands in Pakistan can achieve if marketers adopt a shift in mindset and break away from traditional forms of marketing and advertising in the digital era.

    Compared to the 90s, the way Pakistanis communicate and connect has changed drastically. “Pakistan now has 169 million cellular subscribers, 85 million 3G+ subscribers, and 87 million broadband, subscribers.”

    In the digital era, advertisement budgets appear to follow a traditional model, based on strategies that have succeeded in the past. “I’ve realised our industry believes Pakistan has limited internet penetration and poor access to smartphones, thus thinking digital won’t have sufficient reach.”

    Here are some of the facts presented in the article regarding Pakistan’s digital scene that you did not know :

    Fact 1 : Despite being in the digital era 65-70% of current ad spend being allocated to TV by default in Pakistan.

    Fact 2 : Most brands only leverage 20%-30% of the available reach on YouTube among their target audience.

    Fact 3 : Over 90% of the campaigns don’t capture their full target audience because of low funding. 

    Fact 4 : YouTube brand campaigns Drove an 89% increase in awareness and consideration of brands.

    Fact 5 :95% brands saw a significant offline sales lift after a YouTube campaign.

    Fact 6 : YouTube has a reach of over 36 million people

    Fact 7 : Watch time for YouTube has grown to 45% from 2019 to 2020

    How Nestlé Pakistan challenged traditional thinking

    The company focused on their Cerelac brand.They did a two-years of brand activity, which included studying media investments, impressions, sales volume, and revenue across TV and YouTube.

    This is what they found out :

     67% incremental increase in sales per dollar on YouTube than TV.

    The study revealed that even without increasing the overall media budget, they could improve the incremental sales per dollar by 21% by simply reducing the dark periods of online video.

    Constant coverage on YouTube could generate 40% more impressions per week than the 2019 average.

    A similar study from Nestle Australia revealed that in more than 93% cases, YouTube had greater incremental sales per impressions than TV.

    After the analysis, Nestle has since taken a more data-centric approach, rather than only relying on their past experience to guide their media strategy. Moiz suggests that experiment with new channels to keep up with ever-changing consumer behaviors.

    This article was originally published on Think with Google.

  • Marvi Sirmed, Ertuğrul, coronavirus: Here’s what Pakistanis have been searching for in 2020

    Marvi Sirmed, Ertuğrul, coronavirus: Here’s what Pakistanis have been searching for in 2020

    To say that 2020 has been a rollercoaster would be an understatement. Though the coronavirus pandemic pretty much defined 2020, there were lots of other things that kept Pakistanis engaged throughout the year. Some that we might even have forgotten.

    Lucky for us, Google released its annual ‘Year in Search‘ list on Wednesday, giving us a quick roundup of the year and reminding us of our obsessions which included Diriliş: Ertuğrul, Meray Paas Tum Ho, Money Heist, Sarah Khan and Falak Shabbir’s wedding and Pakistan vs England series besides of course corona.

    Meanwhile, check out the complete lists here:

    Top Search

    1. Pakistan vs England
    2. Coronavirus
    3. Zimbabwe vs Pakistan
    4. Google Classroom
    5. US Election 2020
    6. PSL 2020
    7. India vs New Zealand
    8. England vs Australia
    9. England vs West Indies
    10. Worldometers

    People

    1. Marvi Sarmad
    2. Uzma Khan
    3. Joe Biden
    4. Alizeh Shah
    5. Hareem Shah
    6. Minahil Malik
    7. Falak Shabir
    8. Asim Azhar
    9. Esra Bilgiç
    10. Sarah Khan

    Events/Occasions

    1. US elections
    2. Leap day
    3. International women’s day
    4. Australia fire
    5. Gilgit Baltistan election 2020 result
    6. Beirut blast
    7. Motorway incident
    8. Kabaddi world cup 2020
    9. Under 19 world cup
    10. Khabib vs Gaethje

    Movies & TV

    1. Ertuğrul
    2. Mere Paas Tum Ho
    3. Money Heist
    4. Bigg Boss 14
    5. Mirzapur Season 2
    6. Deewangi
    7. Mera Dil Mera Dushman
    8. Kuruluş: Osman
    9. Ehd-e-Wafa
    10. Joker

    Gadgets

    1. Huawei Y9a
    2. Infinix Note 7
    3. Vivo V20
    4. iPhone 12
    5. Infinix Hot 9
    6. OPPO F17 Pro
    7. Vivo S1
    8. Vivo Y20
    9. Vivo Y51
    10. Huawei Y6p

    According to Google, these lists are based on search terms that had the highest spike this year as compared to the previous year (2019).

  • Google honours Bano Qudsia with a doodle on her 92nd birth anniversary

    Google honours Bano Qudsia with a doodle on her 92nd birth anniversary

    Google is celebrating renowned novelist and playwright Bano Qudsia’s 92nd birth anniversary with a doodle.

    In a statement, Google said: “Today’s Doodle honours the life and legacy of Pakistani novelist and stage and television playwright Bano Qudsia, affectionately known as Bano Aapa (elder sister), who is widely credited as one of the most significant Urdu language authors in modern times.”

    “Renowned for her message of love and hope, Qudsia earned enormous acclaim for Urdu classics like her television play Aadhi Baat (Half Talk, 1968) and novel Raja Gidh (The Vulture King, 1981).”

    Bano Qudsia was born on November 28, 1928, in Firozpur, British India. She began to write short stories when she was a child. After the partition of the subcontinent, she moved to Lahore, where she earned her master’s degree in Urdu. While in school, she also met her future husband and fellow luminary of Urdu literature Ashfaq Ahmad.

    Google further said: “During a fertile era of Pakistani literature, Qudsia’s thought-provoking television plays earned her a reputation as a cultural trendsetter. In addition, she wrote a prolific 25 novels and founded her own magazine called Dastango. Even as her legend grew throughout her six-decade career, she maintained a reputation for her radical acceptance and kindness, known to embrace those from all walks of life who approached her for mentorship or assistance.”

    “Happy birthday, Bano Qudsia! Your contributions to Pakistani literature and entertainment will continue to resonate for generations to come!,” concluded the Google note.

    It is pertinent to add that Qudsia is also the recipient of the prestigious Sitara-e-Imtiaz (1983) and the Hilal-e-Imtiaz (2000).

    Read more – Google celebrates Manto with a colourful doodle

    Meanwhile, cricket commentator Ramiz Raja also remembered the late novelist and recalled the time he played tennis ball cricket at her home and broke her veranda’s tube light.

    “Readying myself for a dressing down, all I got from her instead was a warm expression to know if I was okay,” shared Raja.

  • WhatsApp rolls out payment services in India

    WhatsApp rolls out payment services in India

    WhatsApp began testing its payment services in India with one million users in 2018, and now they are rapidly expanding the feature to capture the world’s second-largest economy.

    The Facebook-owned company said on Friday that it is rolling out payments in ten regional languages in the latest stable version of WhatsApp on Android and iOS.

    The company made the announcement when National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), the body that runs the Unified Payment Interface (UPI) system, approved to roll out the feature in the Indian market.

    Like Google, Samsung and several other firms, WhatsApp has built its payments service in collaboration with large banks in India.

    NPCI said WhatsApp, which has accumulated over 400 million users in India, can expand payments to its users in a “graded-manner”, and to start with, it can only roll out the payments service to 20 million users and has to work with multiple banking partners.

    WhatsApp said that they are already working with leading banks like ICICI, HDFC, Axis, Jio Payment, and the State Bank of India.

    Google and Walmart are currently dominating the mobile payments market in India; together they have almost 80% of the UPI market share.

    UPI’s popularity has diminished the relevance of several firms in India, including SoftBank and Alibaba-backed Paytm that spent years building mobile wallets. Unlike UPI apps, mobile wallets are not interoperable with other mobile wallets and levy a small fee to consumers.

    “With UPI, India has created something truly special and is opening up a world of opportunities for micro and small businesses that are the backbone of the Indian economy. India is the first country to do anything like this. I’m glad we were able to support this effort and work together to help achieve a more digital India. I want to thank all our partners who’ve made this possible. When people can access financial tools, they’re more empowered to support themselves and others or start a business. Long term, we need more innovation that gives people control over their money, and making payments easier is a small step that can help,” said Mark Zuckerberg, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Facebook, in a video posted on Friday.

    Facebook itself has made a big push in e-commerce in the past year. And if WhatsApp gains traction with payments, it could open more avenues for its parent firm.

  • Google creates earthquake alert system using Android Operating System

    Google creates earthquake alert system using Android Operating System

    Google is using its huge Android Operating System (OS) to create a worldwide earthquake alert system. This will create the world’s biggest earthquake detection network.

    If you sign up for the new initiative, your Android phone will become a mini-seismometer using the built-in accelerometer, and the system will eventually warn people of earthquakes.

    Google is working with the United States Geological Survey (USGS) and the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services (Cal OES) to send alerts to Android users in California. This new earthquake detection system is based upon the existing alert system that uses signals from 700 different seismometers.

    “The public infrastructure to detect and alert everyone about an earthquake is costly to build and deploy. We saw an opportunity to use Android to provide people with timely, helpful earthquake information when they search, as well as a few seconds warning to get themselves and their loved ones to safety.”

    Marc Stogaitis, the Software Engineer at Android

    Google will gradually roll out earthquake alerts to more states in the US and then to other countries around the world. Since every smartphone has an accelerometer, they can detect signals that can indicate an imminent earthquake.

    Once a phone detects an earthquake, it will send location data to Google to point out where the earthquake took place. Google will then use data from numerous devices to determine the epicentre of the earthquake. Google hopes to make its earthquake data more accurate and will eventually release it for Google Search as well when people look up earthquakes.

    The update for earthquake detection will be rolled out using Google Mobile Services (GMS), meaning that a full OS update will not be required. It also means that phones without GMS such as Huawei phones will not receive the feature.

  • YouTubers, fans seek YouTube office in Pakistan

    So far, over 30k tweets have been posted with the popular hashtag #WeWantYouTubeOfficeInPAK as the users request the company to create its office in Pakistan as it will resolve many problems that Pakistani YouTubers face.

    Last week, Pakistan’s famous YouTuber Raza Samo’s account, “Awesome Speaks” got hacked and he took to social media to share the awful news.

    As a result, his fans have initiated protest on Twitter for opening a YouTube office in Pakistan which will bring solutions to YouTubers in Pakistan.

    While addressing to the demands, a famous TV personal turned YouTuber Waqar Zaka tweeted: “YT (YouTube) you must register at PTAofficalpk and Security exchange commission in Pakistan as you are earning from our country and not providing proper support to our users. I am willing to give you free space so please come to Pakistan.”

    YouTube Space is a physical location created by the social media giant for the content creators. The space offers various facilities to the popular YouTubers for producing content. It is also a hub where multiple workshops and community events are arranged for the YouTubers.

    YouTube has created both YouTube Space and YouTube offices in most of the Asian countries. Unfortunately, it does not come to Pakistan, neither YouTube Office nor YouTube space is to be found anywhere.

    A vast number of YouTube accounts are from Pakistan, but due to the nonexistence of YouTube offices in the country, the users face a number of problems that takes the company forever to address.

  • GUYS, FREE GIVEAWAY! Fill it out NOW!

    GUYS, FREE GIVEAWAY! Fill it out NOW!

    So, as we announced earlier, the Google News Innovation Fund is funding The Current to start Pakistan’s first membership program. What does that mean? That means that while everything we do for you will always be free, IF you want something more from us, we can now make that happen! This is so exciting guys! But obviously we need to know from you…what do you want? Fill out this survey and we will start working on what to do for you. And to make it more fun, we are sending GIVEAWAYS to FIVE PEOPLE who fully complete the survey! Thank you so much for supporting us! Means a lot! And we can’t wait to do more!

    Check out this link to fill the survey