I've written a number of posts documenting how "the media are douche" but this one jumps to Number 1 with a bullet. And I think reflects a much larger issue -- the closed-minded, highly insular worldview of Silicon Valley, BigBlog, and the insiders that are funding them.

Earlier today I saw a number of posts on Facebook, not surprisingly, including some amazing charts on its size and profitability -- and its connections around the world.

One revealed that if viewed as a 'nation', Facebook just trails China and India in population. Another -- here -- showed that India has the second largest number of Facebook users on the planet, following the United States. Over 43 million Facebook users in India, which I find amazing.

That's likely why I was drawn to this PandoDaily article:

Why aren't more Indians using Twitter?

Excellent! 

With its planned IPO, we have recently learned how many active daily and monthly users Facebook has, how much revenue it earns, how many mobile users it has, its profits from the past 3 years and its costs, conerns and plans.

Twitter is in many ways a rival to Facebook, or at the very least a counter to the platform's web reach, content distribution and identity services. What, then, is Facebook doing right in India that Twitter is not?

Is Twitter not interested in this giant market, at least not yet? 

Are the messaging costs associated with using Twitter too high? 

What possible rivals does Twitter have in India that are dampening growth?

You know what the real answer is?

India is stupid.

Serious. PandoDailiy -- go read the article for yourself, once again here's the link -- cannot even *fathom* the notion that there is an issue with Twitter. It never enters the discussion that perhaps this well-funded Silicon Valley company has made some strategic missteps or that it's technology, its platform, its quality of service are lacking.

Nope.

India is stupid.

The article even lists very specific reasons for why India *is unable to adopt Twitter or provide any real opportunity for Silicon Valley companies* despite the fact that India is #2 on the planet for Facebook!

The reasons given:

They are poor and less than 50 million are on the web. (Though, magically, over 40 million are apparently using Facebook)

Not enough speak English.

They have a democracy -- "in name". I shit you not, that's what it says. As if China or Indonesia are something more than a democracy in name. Or that this somehow enables India to embrace Facebook but not Twitter.

Their middle class is too small. Of course, again this is not stopping Southeast Asia, Indonesia, Brazil et al from being major users of Facebook.

That's the reasons. Nothing about, just maybe, Twitter not being the right platform:

This isn’t to argue that India won’t be a huge market opportunity for the Web at some point. It is a huge country, and the country is making progress at pulling people into modernity. But it’s very, very slow: Across a host of indices like literacy, life expectancy and quality of life, India is improving at the rate of about 1% per year, according to the World Bank.

But even knowing all of this, I’m still surprised that Twitter isn’t doing better in India. 

Honestly, when was the last time you read something that offensive? 

If only those poor unmodern Indians could speed up their development and maybe conquer illiteracy, we could get Twitter thriving there! And open up a whole new market for Silicon Valley!

I ask you, as it seems as if Silicon Valley has abandoned any duty or thoughts of obligation to help solve the difficult problems of America: obesity, racial strife, cancer, tv shows that focus on death and killing, bad schools, nasty traffic, indebtedness, joblessness, violence:

Do they have any idea or concern of what's actually going on in this world?

Is it all just about starting up a company, selling it, blogging about it, getting money from rich insiders to start up another company, sell it, blog about it?

Is Silicon Valley so closed off? So closed minded? So irrelevant?

I've written often that the smartphone, in combination with the mobile web and social media creates a great leveling in access and opportunity; one unlike *never before* in history. All will have equivalent access. This will, in my view, prove the catalyst to a shift in the global economy and culture on par with the transition to agriculture.

Less grand but a datapoint I like to use nonetheless, in the US the smartphone is destroying our notion of a 'digital divide' as disproportionately more Blacks and Hispanics use smartphones than whites.

Now via the Telegraph, a story about a "Islamic smartphone". 

An Indian company has launched an 'Islamic smart phone', featuring a full copy of the Koran, a GPS application which points to Mecca and a calculator for Zakaat charitable donations.

India is the world's fastest growing mobile phone market with more than 850 million subscribers, including poor rickshaw drivers and farmers.

According to the 'Islamic' mobile's creators Muslims are under-represented among the growing ranks of Indian mobile phone users, but they believe their new phone will bring them into the digital world.

"India has around 180 million Muslims and the penetration of mobile phone in that community is less. But when a compelling product or service is available, it has a potential to increase the number of users. So far, we have had a tremendous response for the product," said Anuj Kanish, who has launched the 'Enmac' in India.

"Religion has a very important place in Indian society, so has the mobile phone. Our aim was to bring a device which caters to both the sections, the product is a combination of both technology and religion, the first of its kind in India," he said.

Oh, snap. See what I did there?

Sometimes I wonder if death can come soon enough to Nokia. Seems like any advantage they have -- or had -- in hardware, design, brand name, distribution, reationships with carriers, availability, are all being consumed by some sort of corporate flesh-eating disease.

MeeGo is dead. The company has told us that Symbian isn't even worth them holding onto. Windows Phone remains Windows Phone. If not for Microsoft's money, and the fear the industry still has about the company, as if since they were once Mike Tyson the guy who demolished Michael Spinks in under two minutes let's ignore that they are now Michael Tyson the guy who plays a parody of himself in those Hangover movies, well…then we would all view Windows Phone as nothing more than the latest version of Palm OS.

I continue to believe that Nokia's name and distribution and hardware capabilities and design capabilities and relationships with carriers will carry them through their current retrenchment. They will, again, be relevant; a maker of smartphones that people buy even when they have a choice. I believe that, but as I read articles like this one out of India, which shows Samsung nipping at Nokia's heels, I question those beliefs.

NEW DELHI: Korean mobile handset maker is catching up fast with its Finnish competitor Nokia< on the back of a strong growth in smartphones and feature phones in India.

According to the latest figures made available by the Voice & Data study, Samsung posted a growth of 21.7 per cent to register revenues of Rs 5,720 crore in 2010-11 from India, from Rs 4,700 crore in the previous fiscal. Nokia on the other hand had a flat growth, with revenues of Rs 12,929 crore in 2010-11 from India compared to Rs 12,900 in the previous fiscal, according to the Voice & Data study.

Though Nokia remains the market leader in India with a 39 per cent share, its dominance is under pressure, say experts. According to industry sources, Nokia's market share has is 37.5 per cent in January-July this year. Its market share stood at 49.3 per cent in 2010. Its competitor Samsung's market share has increased to 28 per cent in first seven months. In 2010, Samasung's had a market share of 20.1 per cent, sources said.

Lastly, let's not just focus on Nokia's failures. They built a global market back when, frankly, there wasn't the money, wasn't the competition there is now. Even now, they don't appear ready for a fight. Samsung, however, has over the past year, become Android's version of the Mike Tyson of old. Nokia, Blackberry and Apple know this. The other Android handset makers, I bet, will soon discover that Samsung isn't just standing up to non Android handset makers, but is putting the hurt on just about everyone.

Times of India showcases the country's most popular high-end smartphones from Nokia.

The reason I'm posting the slideshow, even though I hate slideshows, is because I suspect every Nokia Windows Phone released over the next year will be one of these, with Symbian swapped out for Windows Phone Mango. Same specs, same form factor, same design.

Report in McKinsey ($ registration required) that examines how India may become the world's first mobile digital society. The large population, population density, emphasis on education and on learning English, and the embrace of the mobile phone will continue to empower India and the Indian diaspora, which will strengthen their connections back home.

Obviously, PCs are too costly for many. Corruption remains widespread. Infrastructure problems are many. Still, with all the country has to offer and the embrace of the mobile, India could point the way to our future:

India could become the first mobile digital society.

Although just 7 percent of its people currently have Web access, Indians consume—offline—an average of 4.5 hours of digital content daily.

By charging fees to load it onto mobile devices, some businesses in effect serve as physical iTunes stores, a market estimated at more than $4 billion a year.

If demand were unleashed through the mobile Internet, McKinsey research forecasts, the number of users would soar to 450 million by 2015, and digital-content consumption would rise as high as $9.5 billion. 

Great article about India, and the Indian diaspora, in New Geography:

The international importance of India itself is rising to an extent unmatched since the onset of the European-dominated global economy in the 17th century. And with the country’s economy growing at roughly 8 percent a year for the past decade—more than double the rate of the United States—India’s influence can only continue to strengthen. Most economists predict that by 2025 the country will outstrip Japan to become the world’s third-largest economy.

India is more dynamic than any other major country in demographic terms as well. Its population today is 1.21 billion, second only to China’s 1.3 billion, and thanks to the latter’s one-child policy, India’s numbers are expected to surpass those of China by the late ’20s, when India will have an estimated 1.4 billion people versus China’s 1.39 billion. Currently home to the world’s second-largest contingent of English speakers, India seems destined to step into first place, ahead of the United States, by 2020.

But the mother country’s rise has been more than equaled by that of India’s émigrés. In fact, the diaspora remains one of India’s most important sources of foreign capital. According to the most recent available figures, workers from India in 2009 sent $49 billion in remittances to relatives back home, outpacing China by $2 billion and Mexico by $4 billion. Four percent of India’s gross domestic product comes from North American remittances alone.

In fact, India’s business community tends to be family--centered, both at home and abroad. Chinese entrepreneurs are more than twice as likely to be financed through banks, most of them state-owned. In contrast, Indian firms and business networks tend to be essentially familial and tribal, extending in networks across the world.

Family-centered. Large population. Large English speaking population. Massive cash outflows/inflows. Entrepreneurial diaspora. The smartphone will absolutely have a signnificant empowering effect upon India, and all Indians touch, I suspect.

I'll believe it when you have to pry it from my cold dead hands. Still, a device with a screen, touchscreen interface, and connectivity to the Internet, for $32, would be revolutionary.

Via the iPad's The Daily, which I subscribe to for 99 cents a week and which one day I will probably review for my readers.