A few days back, one of my friends who is an avid user of Twitter and Facebook started lamenting that the “Orkutization” of Facebook and Twitter has begun in India. He actually meant that people from tier-II and III cities and towns have started joining Facebook and making it the new Orkut, but I think there is also a deeper meaning to it. Let’s look at it.
Where are we heading as a country in terms of using social networks? How has web 2.0 evolved in India over this period of time?
According to the World Bank world development indicators 2008, Internet users in India are a mere 7%.Right from the days of Yahoo groups, to the Facebook and Twitter of today, it is truly outstanding that communication and interaction among people has changed from being two dimensional to multi-dimensional. At the same time, one thing which is constantly changing is how open these networks are. If we take Yahoo groups for example, people were able to share within the group and it was exclusive.
With the advent of Orkut in India, people initially resisted a lot to put personal information, their likes and dislikes, and above all, speak to one another in the open. Those who put this information were not aware that it was publicly displayed. Over a period of time, though, privacy was a bit enhanced, people started interacting and sharing just about everything. People opened up. You could initiate a conversation with anyone. Simultaneously, with it came a saturation point where people got bored of it. They wanted to grow out of it.
Do you think it is because people wanted to become more open, share and consume news and updates in a better way? If that was so, I think Orkut could never evolve and facilitate this process. It could not retain its audience and slowly the user base from the metros of India started shifting to other networks.Facebook was the ideal choice at this point of time.
Facebook is more real and trusted compared to Orkut. The thing with Facebook is, though people are real and trusted, privacy is again a big issue. It is actually more open compared to Orkut. Though people keep having privacy concerns at the start, they seem to adapt to newer ways to open up and enjoy it. The introduction of news feed into Facebook is a classic case to explain this, but today it has indeed become a huge hit among the people.
Now, people update, share things about their lives and other interesting things around them and at the same time listen and consume the same from their friends around. Facebook has done a wonderful job in retaining its audience. Though Facebook has been evolving and catering to its audience quite efficiently, will there be a time where people want to grow out of Facebook and expand?
Over the last year or so, location based social networks like Foursquare and Latitude have come up. They let you share your location to friends.With the advent of mobile internet, this is becoming increasingly popular and I am sure Facebook will make all efforts to integrate it. So when people can start tracking us geographically, we have just opened a bit more which is both scary and nice at the same time.
Is this just a trick the social networks use to make a business gain out of it? Brands all over the world are trying to leverage these social networks in the best way possible and creating a market out of it for people like us to brand them. Many brands in India might not be interested in venturing into this space thinking India is still very small in the Internet scene.But, if brands in India start taking it seriously, they can observe a distinct cultural shift in the way their companies work and brand themselves.
Creating tools to make television, mobile and radio social is the next step. As I conclude I am still wondering “Where are we heading?”. Is this some kind of revolution in how we communicate, interact and make this world a more inclusive place?
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