Google has been talking about its Africa plans at a meeting in Nigeria

First up was Tamar Yehoshua (VP product management, Google Search), who talked about the new things Google is doing with Search in the Nigerian context.

Responding to questions about slow internet issues and high cost of broadband internet for users, Yehoshua said, “Today we’re launching a feature to streamline websites you reach from search results, so that they load with 90 percent less data and five times faster, even on low storage devices.”

She also fielded questions on the new announcements Google made pertaining to Search. The Google exec outlined how the tech giant has worked with the University of Ibadan for over a year to develop 800 health-related knowledge cards to help with health-related search queries.

Next was Johanna Wright (VP, Product Management, YouTube) who broke down the thinking behind a new version of YouTube (called YouTube Go) which Google is currently testing here in Nigeria.

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“In June, Nigeria became the second country where we started actively testing YouTube Go. Later this year, we’ll be expanding this to a beta launch of the app and it will available to all Nigerian users,” Wright said, in response to a question about the building process behind the app and when it will be available in Nigeria.

Suren Ruhela, who leads Google Maps for emerging countries, was next and he detailed the limiting factors to things like how quickly geographical changes are reflected on Google Maps.

“We have multiple ways through which we identify what changes have been made at a location and those methods have to come together before an update is done. But there is no one true way to update Maps in real-time. It’s just not possible,” he said.

“However, with the help of the over 100,000 Google Local guides we have here in Nigeria [and other contributors on Maps], those changes and corrections can be made faster,” Ruhela added.

None of the execs commented on how much revenue Google was making here in Nigeria, after a journalist asked the question. “We don’t comment on revenue numbers,” said Mich Atagana, a Google Africa spokesperson.

Stay with Business Insider SSA for more details on the Google For Nigeria event, including Google CEO Sundar Pichai’s chat with veteran journalist, Adesuwa Onyenokwe.