Everything is moving eastward: and social media usage?

What is common between Me, Barrack Obama, and Brad Pitt apart from stunning looks? We all have a Twitter or Facebook account. Where’s the big deal? Every other person has one. The point to be noted here is not the quality of people having an account but the quantity. Therefore I think it is safe to derive that social networking is a phenomenon which is determined on demographics. So if the demographics are on an oriental trend then it is but redundant to assume that social networking would be otherwise.

So what do we mean when we say eastward? Elucidating further, pick up the first gadget that you can find on your comp table, most probably it is made in china unless it is a nail cutter as only the Koreans deserve the sole right to manufacturing them . So if a Ford truck can be branded in AMERICA assembled in JAPAN and sold in AUSTRALIA can it be called an American vehicle? Yes the world has globalized and you are smack in the middle of it. However Globalization has become more of a misnomer if looked at from the western perspective and us individually. For them (the Americas and the Europes) it means loss of job and a falling economy, for us it means more BPOs, KFCs and Reality TV.

Confusing so far! Read on.

Fact 1: In Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia almost 80% of Internet users use social media.

Fact 2: Indonesia already has the second most number of FB users after the US.

Fact 3: You did not know all this till you read it here.

Our food for thought is firstly why has fact No.1 and 2 happened? And since these are true we can safely assume that the internet does more than just provide information. Fact no 1 happened because social networking is more than just to and fro of personal or commercial information across users it is now a “Virtual Bridge” connecting minds to thoughts , people to emotions and you to others. The sheer amount of people who have lacked the ease of a channel like a social networking for connecting it can be again safely assumed that the high demographics found in the east will be driving the modus operandi of you, me, Barrack Obama and Brad Pitt at-least on Facebook.

To connect you need people, and the East has it in abundance, however, is it solely the demographic quantity edge that has triggered this shift? One should keep in mind the fact that the East has a small population which can actually access the internet and of those who do; many face a lot of technical barriers in their way, unlike their western counterparts. The transition has occurred because the East has gradually come to appreciate the power of social media. People here have realized how strong this medium is when it comes to spreading truth and awareness.

                                                                                

The bottom-line is: Yet another trend that started off in the WEST has caught up big time with the EAST. So when we look at the social media usage in this part of the world, it ranges from opposition in the Singapore elections to organizing rallies against corruption in India to helping victims of the earthquake in Japan locate their loved ones.

What an Odd name for a site which focuses on everything else but your face (some of my friends don’t even have a Profile Pic). Speaking of pictures, for all you guys who like their facts in numbers and not in gibberish please look at the graph below and understand. If you still don’t get it, you can ask someone else or post it as a status on your Facebook page, better still- avoid all hassles and ask me (COMMENT ).

Credits: RAGHU- for forwarding some crucial stuff, VICKY- for that extra confusion, and a little bit of BBC for all the sad facts.

The overpopulated planet…

No points for guessing that it’s FACEBOOK I am talking about.

I may have disappointed my clique by deciding to write about Mark Zuckerberg, a hard working guy. But this guy who went to Harvard and then left it midways to become the youngest billionaire (debatable, because his roommate cum co-founder is also a billionaire and was born 6 days after him) deserves some recognition.

But folks cheer up, he has some of our traits, look how he quit studies midways!!

So you might be thinking that you know everything about this guy, you have watched the movie “Social Network” right?

WRONG! There are some startling revelations coming up in this blog…

But before that I will narrate an interesting story.

It was a dark afternoon in Delhi; the eclipse prediction was accurate to the T. Rishav was already two floors down when that rigging dilemma whether he locked his room or not took over. He rushed back upstairs and confirmed from the nearest staircase itself… it was locked.

He struck his rear head lightly with his hand. This is what he has been doing for every silly mistake he does. But today this punishment would not suffice for the gaffe he commited last night.

He rushed to the spot where the cab would be waiting for him everyday. He was late as usual. But Nobody really minded his late coming, instead he was always greeted with “good mornings/ afternoons” and “smiles”. There is one thing that must be said about him in this respect. Rishav was a social animal.

He befriended people in no time, particularly those whom he wanted to be with (or for that matter from whom he wanted to extract some work).  So he was friends with the cab driver (of every cab he ever traveled in), with all the guys who ever accompanied him and of course with all the girls he ever met. Yes, he was a womanizer too.

Some said it was his child-like looks and others said it was his soft-spoken attitude that these girls liked. But here he managed to maneuver both the sides in such a way that the girls didn’t mind his friendship with the so called “bad” boys, and the guys were not jealous of his long list of “girl” friends!

But today was not just another day. It was the SECOND of days he would like everyone to forget. He sensed trouble for the first time when nobody greeted him, except Smith, his best friend (or so he thought). He did not know whether to initiate a discussion today. He could do it in any normal day when others hardly had a topic to start a conversation. But today a strange eerie in the cab’s atmosphere made him hesitant.

Suddenly it struck him!

Did they know what happened last night? But how could they?

He did the job with such finesse; he couldn't dare to let others know about it! 

Was it all over then?

Then why didn't that column in THE HINDU mention or even hint at him?

Or was he overrating the scenario?

Maybe these thoughts were bound to arrive in every brain which masterminded, executed or even witnessed the previous night’s occurrences.

Then why was every thing so atypical today? Or was he mistaken?

It could be that everyone greeted him and he didn't hear any due to his exhilaration. Maybe it was his anticipation of the worse which blanketed the reality just like the moon’s shadow had done to the earth few minutes back.

He decided not to jump to a conclusion. He was trained not to.

He replied with a hesitant smile to Smith- “Wassup buddy?”

Smith- “Bas kat rahi hai yaar, Tu bata. Ghar se phir phone aya tha kya? Upset lag raha hai?”  Smith was one of those Indians (on the verge of extinction) who still preffered Hindi unless forced to otherwise.

“Nahi Yaar, just have a headache”

He decided not to talk throughout the journey and pretended to have a serious headache.

To be continued...

So friends, a first time writer just sold his draft to you, thanks to FACEBOOK.

Imagine me starting the blog with a title: Story (just another story) of Rishav- the terrorist in masquerade. Would you have read it from there? No, but you did this way. Such is the power of social media.

So not only individuals like me but even business houses have caught up with the trend. They say it’s been high time that they transit from selling to a mass (out of which many may not buy) to selling to the needy (90% selling guaranteed).

While Facebook has undoubtedly surpassed every other medium in the space (in almost every aspect), other media are not really dispensable. A simple fact in support could be that every prospect (in business sense) does not have a FB page. Twitter, consumer forums, dashboards and blogs are unique in their own way. An assembly of these media can effectively help business houses to reach out to the consumers. Where businesses worldwide have realized this, some specialized business providers have mushroomed to fill the demand gap.

These firms provide specialized services which are customized according to the needs of their clients. They have the infamous advantage -talked about widely in the book FREKONOMICS- of information and expertise which their clients do not have.

Moreover, there is a sense of paranoia amongst these giants that they might miss something in the social sphere which their rivals can use against them.

NETSCRIBES offers such services to its clients so that they don’t miss out on any development in this arena. And I am a part of this process! Interesting right?

The story of an unintentional blogger

While it is true that I was not born with that silver spoon, it is also true that I hardly ever walked that extra mile to get anything. Whatever I got was always a kind of gift and nothing was hard-earned!!

Laziness was always in me. I could never reach school on time, I always dozed off at the study table, loved only to bat (bowling involved run-ups), didn't bother to burn the midnight oil even before important exams like the boards (ask any Indian what BOARD exams mean to them and then decide upon the magnitude of my laziness) and today as I write this blog my boss is explaining me how critical time management is to one's career (Yes, i was late to office... again).

By now I hope I have some sympathizers... people who know the value of more than 8  hours of sleep a day, those who regularly squander away time sitting on a couch  engrossed deeply in movies and of course people who risk a divorce for that beer with their friends!!

People of my clan hardly reach anywhere in the pyramid of their career, but we have one thing which no one can beat us at- our ability to talk, think and interpret the world in an unique way (thanks to our restful mind and soul which has ample time to take in any trash which hard-working people hardly consider and reflect upon).

Now the big question arises: How on earth did this native of the lazy-men-club end up blogging (believe me it requires HARD-WORK)!!

The story goes this way....

Once upon a time- in the year 1997 to be precise (REMEMBER: In the Internet era even one year old stuff is history)- there were men called Jorn Barger and Peter Merholz who coined the term "Blog". Websites like Open Diary (1998)  started by Bruce Ableson, LiveJournal (1999) by Brad Fitzpatrick took blogging to the next level. And by the time Evan Williams and Meg Hourihan (Pyra Labs) launched blogger.com in August 1999 (sold to Google in 2003) blogging was almost a household term.

But this was only the beginning of an Era, one that would change the way people thought and above all- REACTED!!

Because in the year 2004 Mark Zuckerberg was to happen. It is for all of us to see today how FB has changed the way we do business. Social media was growing at an unprecedented rate both in volume and effect. In January 2005, Fortune magazine listed eight bloggers that business people "could not ignore": Peter Rojas,Xeni Jardin, Ben Trott, Mena Trott, Jonathan Schwartz, Jason Goldman, Robert Scoble, and Jason Calacanis. The combined brand value of all social media facilitators skyrocketed many times every year since then. 

Cut to the 2011. This lazy creature graduated and like every other inhabitant of "the" lazy world said its high time (happy time) to call STUDIES quits. And this was when I realized how badly people like me need a silver spoon at birth.

So I assembled all my certificates and walked into this organization called NETSCRIBES and managed to get a job (thanks AGAIN to my restful mind which hitherto spend a lot of time studying the SOCIAL MEDIA).

Yes, today I am a SOCIAL MEDIA INTELLIGENCE guy. And this blog is dedicated to this bread earner of mine called the SOCIAL MEDIA SPACE.