Monday, March 29, 2010

Google to produce internet guide … in a leaflet

Google, one of the world's most prominent evangelists for all things digital, has turned to one of the most traditional of old media routes to try to persuade more British people to go online: it is printing a leaflet. The Simple Guide to the Internet is part of the search engine group's commitment to Race Online 2012, an initiative started by the UK government's digital inclusion champion, Martha Lane Fox. The co-founder of Lastminute.com and the entrepreneur behind a growing Lucky Voice karaoke bar empire hopes to get 10,000 British businesses and charities signed up to her campaign, which is designed to put everyone in the UK online by the end of 2012. Google's leaflet, which it intends to start distributing this year through libraries, charities and other public bodies that work with the digitally excluded, will give novices all the information they need to carry out basic online tasks, such as communicating with friends. It will not be used to push Google's own services. But its appearance is likely to raise a smile among old media executives as it proves that the product of dead trees can still be useful in this digital world.

No comments:

Post a Comment