Social Media Experts and their ‘defunct fundas’

Why do self-proclaimed experts always resort to using non-standard abbreviated versions of words that is more often than not a ‘gobbledygook’ to many? They tend to use part of words and put it to represent the entire concept and when the listener seems confused, then they disseminate all the ‘gyan’ they have. Looks like they are hooked to use Synecdoche!

Beside, these self-proclaimed expert also tend to be a bid rigid about the fundas they deliver. Some times they defend it by saying that all the big corps does it and resort to the best practices leeway. When the best practice is not applicable, they resort to innovative customizations to bolster their fundas. Don’t blindly follow is what they say.

And, when the executions don’t churn out the expected moolah they say that it is lack of internet penetration in the country. Still better, Social (Media) is not a ’substitute’ for marketing strategy. It is an adjunct to it. Getting Social is one aspect. There are others which are more cardinal then just getting social.

What they forget is that socializing as such is giving away or attending give aways.

• It is giving and taking.
• Give gyan. Take gyan.
• Attend complaints. Give solutions.
• Listen to grievances. Say sorry and rectify the errors.
• Be flexible. Be receptive. Be sporty to take criticism.
• Work on social to attend to the problems and try and solve them Not for ORM.

Why don’t they drop pretensions and just ‘Socialize’

And blogging is contagious

It really is if you get comments & responses and good stats!

And what if you don’t? It still can be contagious when you are passionate about writing. It doesn’t have to be information dissemination or gospel preaching. It simply has to be straight, terse, impacting and real. And these adjectives can only be associated if it is straight from the heart. If you feel about the things you write. If you know what you are writing. It has to be real and not ctrl + c and ctrl + v.

Also, beside the abovementioned preaching remember to -

• Read comments
• Reciprocate
• Accept mistakes & rectify those
• Visit the commentors blog and drop in comments.

Blogging is best enjoyed when you read and you are read. Isn’t it a social thing? Personal updates as blog content is passe and dead. If it has to be personal updates, Facebook & Twitter have taken over.

Have a good time

Social Media – Know where to draw the line!

Contemporaneous times and it seems that one can never over-emphasize the importance of social media. Reaching out to the intended consumer is the mantra and word of mouth marketing (BzzAgent), Twitter, Facebook, Orkut, Blogs, Forums and other platforms are all the handy tools that an online marketing executive looks to explore and ‘hopes’ for maximum benefits.

With the surging tide of social media nearly all are turning upto to social media – albeit they don’t have a clue of how to proceed with it. Clueless find someone who has a clue or someone who claims that he has the clue – The so called social media experts. Learn why you shouldn’t call yourself a social media expert here)

The very intriguing point about investing time and money in social media marketing is the obscurity of ROI – it is not easily computable like Pay per clicks or SEO. If you have 3673 fans on your facebook page or 39 blog comments and 237 diggs you still cannot decipher the actual implications of these numbers on your sales and revenue. [But - But new measuring tools like Radian 6 and ClearSaleing are starting to make things a little easier]

You cannot exactly estimate the time and money invested versus the return ratios in terms of social media marketing. And the very important fact of the matter is that the conversion rate of these numbers in actual revenue generation is ‘unpredictable’ and inconsistencies are inevitable.

What is the overarching goal of social media? Essentially it is a one-to-one interaction with potential or actual buyers. Social media is used to generate sales leads in the form of opt-in followers. It is therefore the goal of any social media effort to generate followers and it is the generation of these that is a measurable parameter of social media marketing goals. But statistics about the conversion of potential buyer to buyer is not clearly elucidated by social media marketing.

Knowledge Network survey claims that only 16%” are more likely to buy from companies that advertise on social sites. This is relatively on the lesser side considering the hype and attention that social media is hogging away from conventional marketing practices.

The essence is one, as a marketer, must know where to draw the line and use social media as an aid to traditional media – relying on social media along won’t do the business. You must go out, meet, discuss and exchange – Face-to-Face in real world.

TinEye image search engine

TinEye is a handy reverse image search engine. If finds where on the web an image comes from. You can use it to find where a photo of yours appears elsewhere, to find a higher res version of an image, or to locate the origins of a photo someone forwarded to you.

It does not use keywords, watermarks, or inbound links (as Google does) to locate images; rather it locates images via matching digital fingerprints of the image’s pixel arrays. This means it can find images that have been renamed, or cropped slightly, or even screen grabbed.

Currently TinEye is not exhaustive. In my experience it won’t find all the copies of an image. (They only claim to recognize a million images so far, which is a small subset of all images on the web.) But it will find enough to be useful.

It can browse your hard disk for a target image, but even cooler is the Firefox plugin which enables you to select in image on a web page and in a click find where else on the web this image also appears.

Email, FB, Orkut, Twitter and so on…

Tech writer Mike Elgan brilliantly argues that while our parents taught us hard work and long hours will lead to success, in the internet age the ability to control what you pay attention to is the key.

A person who works six hours a day but with total focus has an enormous advantage over a 12-hour-per-day workaholic who’s “multi-tasking” all day, answering every phone call, constantly checking Facebook and Twitter, and indulging every interruption. It’s time we upgraded our work ethic for the age we’re living in, not our grandparents’ age. Hard work is still a virtue, but now takes a distant second place to the new determinant of success or failure in the age of Internet distractions: Control of attention. Hard work is dead. Are you paying attention?

Malcolm Gladwell’s latest book called “Outliers,” made a statement as profound as it was accurate: “Control of attention is the ultimate individual power,” he wrote. “People who can do that are not prisoners of the stimuli around them.”

But why is that truer now than ten or twenty years ago? Why will it be truer still ten or twenty years from now? Internet distractions evolve to become ever more “distracting” all the time — like a virus. Distractions now “seek you out.”

Distractions mask the toll they take on productivity. Everyone finishes up their work days exhausted, but how much of that exhaustion is from real work, how much from the mental effort of fighting off distractions and how much from the indulgence of distractions?

Pundits are constantly talking about Facebook, Twitter, blogs and humor sites, not to mention old standbys like e-mail and IM. One gets the impression that we should be “following” these things all day long, and many do. So when does the work get done? When do entrepreneurs start and manage their businesses? When do writers write that novel? When do IT professionals keep the trains running on time? When does anyone do anything?

Courtsey – Malcom Galdwell

Google all the way!

The Power of ‘G’

The name that has redefined the gold standard in the Search Engine industry has made heavy impact in applications and the enterprise sector as well. The question with Google is always the same; what next?

A few decades back, five ‘W’s (why, what, when, where and who) fed the curious instincts of all the scourging souls. Philosophers, teachers and preachers swore by the basic fundamental of these five ‘W’s. Never did we imagine that the same fundamentals would be so swiftly and, more importantly, efficiently be replaced by a ‘G’. Yes, the ‘G’ stands for Google Inc. and it has been the one stop answer for zillions of queries arising in curious souls globally for nearly a decade now. ‘Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful’; this is what the opening statement of the company’s introduction reads, and to a large extent Google has been standing by its aim and quite successfully too.

Larry Page and Sergey Brin are the two master-minds whose relentless efforts and un-paralleled zeal has given the alphabet ‘G’ a whole new meaning. Google, the name in itself is very aptly suited to the company’s goal and mission. “Googol” is the mathematical term, coined by Milton Sirotta for a 1 followed by 100 zeroes. Google’s play on the term reflects their mission to organize the immense amount of information available on the Web. Larry Page and Sergey Brin, both students of Stanford University recognized the need and potential of organizing the massive data that the Internet hosts and developed an all new approach to quickly spread to information seekers around the globe. Google is now unanimously voted as the world’s largest search engine, an easy-to-use free service that usually returns relevant results in a fraction of a second. Google examines billions of Web pages to find the most relevant pages for any query and returns those results in less than half a second. No other search engine accesses more of the Internet or delivers more useful information than Google. Speed, accuracy, objectivity and ease of use separate Google from its competitors.

Advertising: Adwords, Adsense, and Analytics
While the dotcom boom exploded around it and competitors spent millions on marketing campaigns to “build brand,” Google focused instead on quietly building a better search engine. With superior search technology and a high volume of traffic at its Google.com site, Google’s managers identified two initial opportunities for generating revenue: search services and advertising.

Thousands of advertisers use Google AdWords program to promote their products and services on the web with targeted advertising, and AdWords is the largest program of its kind. Google AdWords advertisers create ads to drive qualified traffic to their sites and generate leads. Google publishing partners deliver those ads targeted to relevant search results powered by Google AdSense. With AdSense, the publisher shares in the revenue generated when readers click on the ads. Thousands of website managers take advantage of the Google AdSense program to deliver ads relevant to the content on their sites, improving their ability to generate revenue and enhancing the experience for their users.

Advertisers select their own target keywords and only pay when customers click on their ads. It’s easy to create ad text and manage online advertising accounts with no large upfront payment required. All that’s needed is five minutes and a credit card. The ads appear across Google’s growing roster of partners, including thousands of sites and are targeted to relevant search and content pages. There’s no limit to the number of keywords that an advertiser can select and each keyword can be matched with a different creative execution. Google provides all of its advertisers with a full complement of reporting services to enable fine tuning of campaigns and real-time intelligence about which components are performing best. Advertisers can further increase efficiencies by targeting their campaigns to specific geographies or languages.

Google AdSense combines Google Search technology with the base of keyword advertisers to deliver ads that precisely target search results or the content on a site’s pages, no matter how specialized the subject matter. Advertisers, publishers, and information seekers all profit as a result. Signing up for AdSense is easy; it only takes a few minutes to apply. And Google’s sales team helps customize the program for sites receiving more than 20 million page views a month.

To bolster the advertising domain, they also cater to something called Google Analytics. Free to all advertisers, publishers, and site owners, Google Analytics helps you identify the keywords, ads, referrals, and campaigns that contribute the most to your bottom line. Recently redesigned, the program can reveal even more about where visitors come from and how they interact with your site. Using Google Analytics can lead to better ads, strengthened marketing initiatives, and websites that convert more effectively.

Blogger
Blogger is a free web-based tool people can use to publish on the Web instantly without writing code or installing software. Hobbyists, families, celebrities, writers, politicians, as well as businesses and publications use blogs to communicate their thoughts, relay their experiences and make connections. Today many people use Blogger in lieu of the traditional personal site or home page, and increasingly, media outlets encourage their reporters to maintain public blogs.

Pyra Labs originally launched Blogger as a side project in 1999 to make it easy for a few Web geeks to update their home pages. That project soon became the company’s core product, and Google acquired Pyra Labs in 2003. Since then, as blogging has grown increasingly popular, the Blogger team has worked continuously on this groundbreaking service to make it easy to use, filled with features that users have requested. It is free of charge.

Blogger features that have recently added or refined include Blog Search, Blogger for Word, Blogger
Images, Blogger Mobile, Flag as Objectionable, Group Blogging, Archives, Save as Draft, spell check,
Secure publishing, free hosting, FTP support, XML syndication, and an API for the development community. In addition to these standard tools, Blogger includes a number of features designed to lower the barrier to personal publishing more than ever.

Blogger includes 33 templates for its blogs. All of the templates are compliant with Web standards, machine readable, CSS-based, and tested for usability.

With the Dashboard, personal customizations are rendered very simple and posting new posts and editing the old ones are just a matter of a few mouse clicks. You can create a desired profile with a display photo and other information as you would like to provide. The profile can be listed to appear in Google blog search.

It also features the Comments option. Comments enable readers worldwide to connect with you as well as each other, and to offer feedback. You control the level of commenting you’d like to see. Comments can be turned on or off at the individual post level, so you decide when to encourage or end discussion on any particular thread. Blogger comments also enable you to specify who can add their two cents, and how they should be identified.

Another interesting plug-in is Blogger for Word. Blogger for Word is a plug-in for Microsoft Word that lets users save a Word doc as a post to their Blogger Blog with a few clicks, without opening up a browser. It provides the options of editing their last 15 Blogger posts in Word, publishing their document to the Web, or saving it as a private draft, where it will appear in the dashboard but not publicly on their blog. Check out Blogger for Word at http://buzz.blogger.com/bloggerforword.html

When you’re on the go, send photos and text straight to your blog with Blogger Mobile. All you need to do is send a SMS or MMS message to go@blogger.com from your phone and it will be added as a new post to your blog. You can also directly use the e-mail application. By selecting E-mail Blogging with Mail-To-Blogger option in Blogger Settings, you can write posts in your favorite e-mail application and send them to your blog, where they are instantly posted (or drafted, according to your preference).

Google Reader
Google Reader is a web-based feed reader. It can help users keep up with their ever-expanding reading list of content from across the Web. Instead of constantly having to check numerous websites for updates, Google Reader can do that for you. From news sites to friends’ blogs, now you can focus on what’s most important to you. Google Reader:

• delivers the latest updates for news and websites you care about
• prioritizes your reading list based on what’s most relevant to you
• helps to organize what you read with labels and stars
• enables you to share interesting stories with built-in e-mail and “blog this” capabilities
• includes the most comprehensive feed finder available
• features an easy to use “Googly” user interface

Website feeds and new content can be easily found with the powerful search option provided herein. On search, the list of related results appears. You can subscribe to the ones you want to add to your reading list. You can also enter the website address (URL) for a specific RSS or Atom feed. (For example, the feed for the Google Blog is http://googleblog.blogspot.com/atom.xml.) Many websites have links to their feeds in their navigation menus.

The reading list on the left side of the screen includes the latest items from your subscriptions. You can sort your reading list by date or by relevance, which uses intelligent algorithms to learn your content preferences and prioritize accordingly. Your subscriptions are the set of feeds you want Google Reader to monitor for updates. The latest items will appear in the reading list.

Websites publish “feeds” with the latest updates to their sites. These feeds are formatted in a specific way so that “feed readers” can understand them. Google Reader can then take multiple feeds and display all that content the way you want it. The two most common types of feeds you’re likely to see are called RSS and Atom. Each one has its own set of guidelines so that readers know how the content will be formatted. Like most readers today, Google Reader supports both formats.

Item View is where you read items on your reading list. Some sites include entire stories, while others give just a headline or brief summary. Whenever you want to see a story in its entirety, click on the headline and you’ll go directly to the source website.

You can also import your subscriptions from another reader. Open “Your subscriptions” at the top of the page and select “Import” from the drop-down box. Upload and import your subscription list as an OPML file. You can also export your Google Reader subscriptions list as an OPML file.

The Labeling option allows you to sort and organize your subscriptions and manage efficiently. Individual feeds or entire subscriptions can be labeled in this manner. Starring items is easy too. Just click on the stars next to them in the reading list. Click “Starred” at the top of the page to view all your starred items.

Gmail
As part of its mission to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible, Google announced a preview release and limited test of a new e-mail product called Gmail in April, 2004. Gmail is a search-based webmail service that helps users organise, access and make better use of the information in their e-mail. Gmail is now available for free and has passed out of the invite-only phase.

Because it’s built on Google search technology, Gmail enables users to search their e-mail to find exactly what they want, when they want it. Google believes that people should be able to store and search for messages instead of deleting or losing them and more than 4300 megabytes of free storage allow just that. Gmail makes the e-mail experience faster and more efficient by reducing the need to spend time filing and putting messages into folders, and by organizing individual messages into meaningful “conversations” so users can quickly understand the context of an e-mail exchange.

• Conversation View: Each message is grouped with all its replies, and is displayed as a “conversation.” This enables you to easily follow who said what and when, without having to piece together the individual messages in a thread. Messages you’ve already read are stacked neatly at the top of the screen, so you can concentrate on the new ones. Conversation View makes it easy to follow an entire e-mail exchange back and forth, including your sent replies.
• Powerful search: Gmail features built-in Google search technology, and as with Google’s keyword-based web search, Gmail returns fast, accurate results. As long as you archive instead of delete, you’ll be able to find any message you’ve ever sent or received.
• Spam filtering: You can quickly remove spam messages from your Inbox by checking a box next to each one, and then pressing the ‘Report Spam’ button. Reporting spam sends valuable data to the Gmail team working on spam blocking. If you, or we, should happen to inadvertently mark a good message as spam, click on the ‘Not Spam’ button at the top of the message. That returns it to your Inbox.
• Contextual ads and related information: Gmail users see several text ads next to their messages. These ads are shown in the same way that you see ads alongside Google search results or, through the Google AdSense program, on content pages across the Web. There may also be a few links to relevant sites and new stories from Google’s extensive Web index.

Additional features include a lot of services. Gmail offers free POP3 access and automatic forwarding, which allows you to access your mail the way you want to. You can download your messages to read offline, use Outlook or your Blackberry or any POP-enabled device, or forward new messages to an e-mail account you specify. You can even export your contacts and switch to other e-mail services without having to worry about losing access to your messages or contacts information. You can also import your contacts from other e-mail programs, including Yahoo! Mail, Microsoft Outlook, Hotmail and others.

Currently Gmail is churned out in 38 language interfaces.

Google Notebook
Google Notebook is a free browser tool that enables people to instantly clip text, images, and links from web pages and then store those clippings in an online “notebook”—all without ever leaving the browser window. Users will also be able to organize their Google Notebooks, add personal notes to them, and make them available for others to search. Best of all, Google Notebook provides users with a single online location to store all their notes—one that can be accessed from anywhere, at any time, with a Google Accounts login.

The Google Notebook extension “mini Google Notebook” can be opened at anytime by clicking the Google Notebook icon in the status bar of your browser. It allows you to jot down quick notes and save web clippings without ever leaving the web page you’re on. You don’t have to waste time switching between windows or applications, because Google Notebook lives in the browser. You can access your Google Notebook by logging in at www.google.com/notebook. And since your Google Notebook is always online, you won’t have to rely on bookmarks, scraps of paper, or other last-minute solutions for recording information as you’re searching on the fly.

Access the full-page view of your Google Notebooks by either selecting Go to full page view from the Actions menu of your mini Google Notebook, or by going to http://www.google.com/notebook. When in the full-page view, you can drag-and-drop notes from one section or notebook into another and make your Google Notebook public for others to view. You can also search the contents of your Google Notebooks or search for Google Notebooks that have been made public by other users.

The full-page view of Google Notebook makes it easy to organize your web clippings and notes. Create multiple notebooks for different topics and divide content into sections. You can even drag-and-drop notes from one section or notebook to another. If you’ve gathered information that could be helpful to others, you can make your Google Notebook available for the world to view. And if you’re interested in checking out others’ public notebooks, you can search for and view them at www.google.com/notebook/search.

Picasa
Picasa is photo management software from Google that makes it easy for people to find, edit and share all of their digital pictures. Whenever you open Picasa, it automatically finds all your photos (even ones you forgot you had) and sorts them into visual albums organized by date with descriptive folder names. Picasa also makes it simple to edit photos by putting one-click fixes and powerful effects at your fingertips. As for photo-sharing, Picasa offers an easy way to e-mail, print at home, make gift CDs and post pictures to your blog.

The newer version of Picasa is packed with a lot of new and useful features. It includes Advanced Editing options, improved photo organization, Safe back ups, Customised prints and DVD’s, Smarter sharing options and lots of fun tweaks with the photos.

Picasa rapidly organizes your entire collection by scanning the images on your computer and automatically sorting them by date. In addition to finding the pictures on your computer, Picasa also imports photos directly from any make or model of digital camera, so you don’t need to bother with the software that came with your camera.

The organization of folders in Picasa now matches the organization on your computer’s hard drive. Create a new folder on disk from Picasa, or drag and drop photos to easily rearrange them into other folders. Use Picasa labels as virtual albums to group and tag photos. The Label button creates a keyword and a label in one step. A label is a virtual album in Picasa and can be shared in slideshows or e-mailed photos. Picasa creates a new “instance” of each photo you label so you can put the same picture into multiple albums without taking up any more space on your computer. You can also give a gold star to any photo to turn your favorites into visual standouts at a glance. Picasa also provides a star search that limits your entire photo collection to those you’ve starred in seconds.

The image editing features incorporated in Picasa have been enhanced manifold. Picasa’s Basic Fixes are one-click buttons that make it quick and easy to remove red-eye, crop, straighten, and fix the contrast and color in digital pictures. The new Fill Light slider perfectly brightens dark, backlit photos. And any edits you make to a picture are automatically made to all copies of that picture throughout Picasa.

Try out the 12 new visual effects including sharpen, sepia, warm tones, color saturation and tints, black and white, even soft focus. If you don’t like it, change it back – “undo” is available at every step.

Writing captions had never been so easy. Picasa makes captions the way journalists do, using the IPTC standard. Picasa captions are fully editable and searchable, and they can be displayed or hidden.

Photography aficionados can fine-tune their photos with the EXIF display. This window shows you all the camera data that is stored in a picture’s original file – such as camera model, date the photo was taken, even if a flash was used. The EXIF display also has a RGB histogram, a real-time graph that shows the intensity of colors in any picture and how they change when you make edits in Picasa. The graph shows the intensity of colors in a photo, and changes as you make edits. The EXIF camera data is also displays camera make, focal length, ISO and other helpful information.

Compatible with most e-mail clients, including Gmail, Picasa will resize and attach pictures to e-mail messages at sizes your friends will be able to open. The improved Picasa Mail (a built-in client) sends photos directly from the software using your Picasa/Hello account. The “BlogThis!” button automatically transfers any selected photo from Picasa to your blog on Blogger.com. Any edits you have made to your photos in Picasa will be included when the transfer occurs.

Adding a bit on its Creativity front, it allows you to turn your photos into a movie, desktop wallpaper or screensaver, posters, collage and so on. CD/DVD back up is too very easy. Picasa even displays the pictures that haven’t been backed up yet to ensure you don’t make mistakes with images that matter.

Google Earth
Google Earth™ is Google’s satellite imagery-based mapping product that combines global coverage of imagery with new navigational features including integrated Google search capabilities. It is based on technology from Keyhole, a company acquired by Google in October 2004. Google Earth is a broadband mapping tool that enables users to fly from space to street level views to find geographic information, and to explore places around the world.

Google Earth is a free downloadable application for personal use. Users can also choose to buy one of two paid services: a higher-end consumer version, Google Earth Plus is $20/year; Google Earth Pro, for professional and commercial use, is $400/year. The paid versions offer a variety of tools for measuring, drawing, saving, printing, and GPS device support. Google Earth is available in English only at the present time.

Most standard web-based map services make you click and wait for an illustration of a location to appear. But the Google Earth experience is measured in video metrics (frames per second), and the screen displays photo-realistic views taken from satellites. The fast, fluid flight enables free-form exploration of the globe. Users can zoom, tilt and rotate around whatever they see.

The combination of speed and photo-realistic images of the entire planet encourage people to explore places they didn’t know about before. And the beauty of the planet itself inspires inspection of volcanic lakes in Nicaragua, sand dunes in North Africa, and other landmarks across the globe.

Google Earth fully integrates local search, including business listings and driving directions by tapping into the same business and routing databases accessed by Google Maps and Google Local services. And more than a web-based map, Google Earth fosters deeper research: the user can zero in on a location, tilt the view, measure distances to other points of interest, and see other attributes in order to complete the picture of the place.

Google Earth enables users to annotate the earth using “Placemarks.” They can add search results, driving directions and other information to their “My Places” area. This XML-based detail can easily be shared via e-mail with other users.

Google Earth includes features like Fly-To Box, Tilt zoom and rotate, Virtual Play, Business searches, 3D graphics, Placemarks, Layering, and Measure tool.

The Fly-To box lets the user directly go to the desired location as chosen or by using an intersection, city, state, zip code, country, or latitude/longitude combination and highlights the route. The tilt, zoom and rotate feature allow you other views by manipulating the viewer controls from different perspectives. With Virtual Play, Google Earth takes you on a virtual helicopter tour of your route. Placemarks are your own favourite places and can be easily created by pressing the pushpin button. The place marks can be stored for quick and easy referral at a later date. Layering allows you to choose among dozens of layers to add to the view – roads, dining, schools, railroads, stadiums, as well as terrain, borders, geographical features and many more. Layers are streamed with the mapping data, so clicking on a layer does not require a return to the server – they are highlighted when you choose them. The Measure tool allows you to get details between any two set points. Move the mouse to draw a line and get details on a particular distance. Pro version enables measuring by radius, perimeter and area.

Google Earth offers website support that includes FAQs, a user guide, and Knowledge Base. Google Earth Plus users receive web and e-mail support and Google Earth Pro users receive web, e-mail and phone support.

Google Groups
Google Groups is a free service people use to communicate effectively through e-mail and the Web on every conceivable subject. Each Google Group has its own home page hosted by Google where members can start new discussions or reply to existing topics. Every Google Group has its own Google-fast search, making it easy to find discussions deep in the group’s archive. Every group also has its own e-mail address so members can stay in touch.

Members can also read and search all public content within Google Groups, including more than 1 billion postings from the Usenet bulletin board service, which dates back to 1981.
The new version of Google Groups enables the easy creation of e-mail announcement-only lists, mailing lists and public discussions in just minutes. And Google Groups also makes it easier to read and participate in discussions. All the replies to an initial post are now gathered on one page. It’s possible to bookmark topics you’re interested in and have new replies to “My starred topics” visible on your personal group page.

• Create groups: Create or search web- and email-based communities, and designate your group as public (anyone can read the group’s messages on the Web) or restricted (only members can read, respond or start new conversations).
• Dynamic conversations: Postings to all Google Groups mailing lists and Usenet lists appear within seconds and are indexed within minutes.
• Enhanced user interface: Track and mark topics using the “My starred topics” feature, and view postings by message summary, title, or conversation view.
• E-mail notification: Receive individual messages or abridged e-mail summaries to participate in discussions via your Inbox.
• Easy searching: Search easily for information within a group or across many groups.
• Relevant text ads: Google Groups displays only targeted ads that are relevant to your searches or the content on the page.

Whether you want a group for school or work friends, family members, or fellow music enthusiasts, you can create one by clicking the “Create a Group” link and following the simple two-step process. You can name the group, describe it so potential members can learn more, see the e-mail address you’ll have for the group, and set preferences for the level of access members will have (public, announcement only, or restricted). It’s easy to create your own group for any interest.

Searching Groups is rendered easy as well. Let’s say you’re interested in finding information about digital cameras. Just search on “digital cameras” and you will see available groups and existing Usenet messages on the subject. You can jump from here to whichever message or group interests you, and if you’re logged in, you can reply to posts or join public groups. Note also that text ads related to digital cameras appear on the right hand side. You will see such ads on the search pages and next to messages within Google Groups.

Everyone can search for and read public group messages, but you must join a group to get access to more features and content. To join a Google Group, register with an e-mail address and password. This is required for posting comments on any message board in Google Groups. You may also log in from an existing Google account, including Gmail. After signing in, your personal My Groups page displays links to all the topics you may want to search. You can set your e-mail preferences for receiving messages for each group you join.

Google Calendar
Google Calendar is a free web-based calendar service that enables people to keep track of all their important events, appointments and special occasions in one place, as well as share these details. Websites can also use Google Calendar to share information ranging from entire calendars to one-time events.

Seeing calendars from your friends and activity groups alongside your own schedule makes planning easier. You can quickly add events mentioned in Gmail conversations or that you have saved in many other calendar applications. Google Calendar even helps you find, and add, interesting events listed around the Web.

You decide who can see your calendar and which details they can view. If you’re planning an event, you can create invitations, send reminders, and keep track of RSVPs right inside Google Calendar. Your guests don’t need to use Google Calendar to get your invitation or post their replies. Organizations can publicize events using Google Calendar as well.

Set up automatic event reminders (including text message notifications to your mobile phone) so appointments never slip your mind. Find important events instantly on your calendar with the built in calendar search tool.

You can import calendar details from many other digital calendar applications such as Microsoft Outlook. Click “Settings,” then choose the “Import Calendar” tab. Google Calendar will recognize calendars saved in iCal or comma separated values (CSV) formats. To learn how to export calendar files from other popular calendar programs, visit the Help Center (www.google.com/support/calendar)

There are many public calendars published on the web, and Google Calendar lets you subscribe to them so you can view these events right next to your own agenda. Just paste the public calendar iCal or XML link into the box at the bottom of the “Calendars” section on the left side of the screen. The calendar you’ve subscribed to will appear there.

Your friends, family and contacts can share their agendas with you if they use Google Calendar. You can also create additional calendars to add event information about different aspects of your life. Each of your calendars can be shared differently.

Google Calendar enables you to keep private, or share, calendar details. Your calendar can be public (and searchable across the Internet), or available only to individuals you choose. Administrators for groups and websites can also make their events public and searchable on Google. You can also set different permission levels for each person you choose.

Google Calendar was built to give users more choice. Google Calendar’s use of the most common open calendar standards (iCal and XML) ensures that Google Calendar is compatible with many other calendar applications and devices. Google Calendar can accept calendar information in these common formats to let people use Google Calendar to manage more of their calendar data. Likewise, Google Calendar’s use of these standard formats ensures that user data doesn’t get locked in. You can export and share information with other calendar applications any time.

Event invitations sent from Google Calendar can be received not only by other users of Google Calendar, but by anyone with any e-mail account. And non-Google Calendar users can see invitations that arrive in their Inboxes, see details about events they’ve been invited to, and RSVP to the sender.

Google Docs and Spreadsheets
Google Docs & Spreadsheets is a free web-based word processing and spreadsheet program that allows you to create and edit documents from anywhere and collaborate with multiple people at the same time.

Google took Writely, the Web word processor, and integrated it with Google Spreadsheets. The result is Google Docs & Spreadsheets, one place where you can create, store, share, and publish your documents and spreadsheets online. Keeping your documents and spreadsheets online is a treat because you can access them from anywhere via a Web browser. You can also get feedback and contributions from others you invite without having to e-mail around copies of files, because the current version is always online.

Documents, spreadsheets, and presentations can be created within the application itself, imported through the web interface, or sent via e-mail. They can also be saved to the user’s computer in a variety of formats. By default, they are saved to Google’s servers. Open documents are automatically saved to prevent data loss. Because Google Docs saves to a secure, online storage facility, you can access your documents from any computer, and, in the event of a local hard drive crash, you won’t lose your saved content. Documents can be tagged and archived for organizational purposes. Collaboration between users is also a feature of Google Docs. Documents can be shared, opened, and edited by multiple users at the same time.

You can take advantage of Google Docs & Spreadsheets to coordinate your student group’s homework assignments, access your family to-do list from work or home, or work with remote colleagues on a new business plan. Import existing documents and spreadsheets, or create new ones from scratch. To invite people to view or edit a document, simply add their e-mail addresses to the list of viewers or collaborators. Anyone you’ve invited to either edit or view your document, spreadsheet or presentation can access it as soon as they sign in.

Multiple people can view and make changes at the same time. There’s an on-screen chat window for spreadsheets, and document revisions show you exactly who changed what, and when. Viewing a presentation together is a breeze, as anyone joined in a presentation can automatically follow along with the presenter.

Take a peak at how a document is shaping up, or contribute your thoughts to a draft in progress. Keep track of multiple versions in one place–with an easy drop-down menu that shows who changed what, and when. If you would like to keep a copy on your hard drive, you can export to a number of popular formats (DOC, XLS, ODT, ODS, HTML, PDF, etc.). Or, easily publish your work to a Web page or blog for the world to see.

In the past, sharing a slew of Google documents with new people was a time consuming process: open each document, select the share tab, and specify the people to share with. Now this can all be done from the documents list! Select one or more items in your Google Docs list, press the ‘Share’ button (or right-click and select ‘Share’), enter the people to share with, add a custom message if you want, and voila — all the documents will be shared with the new folks. And as always, you can decide if they can edit the items or just view them.

Some useful updates includes,
• Save as PDF, for when you really need to download your presentation as a file.
• PDF-based printing options (save trees and ink!). Go to File->Print, select how many slides you’d like on a page (up to 12), and preview your choice.
• Vector shapes, for your basic diagramming and drawing needs. Use block arrows to point out what’s important, or say something in a call-out bubble.
• Customizable headers and footers for printed documents.

To insert a header or footer into your document, click on the “Insert” tab and select “Header” or “Footer.” A box surrounded by dashed lines will appear, and anything you place in that box will be repeated on each page of your printed document.

Google has now also included Sub-Folder options for better organization of documents. Drag and drop your documents into as many folders as you want. Also, to improve the print quality, they have integrated some useful updates in margins, alignments and paging options. However, there are some file-size limitations that have been specified, do make it a point to check those out too.

Google Translator
Google has been kind enough to provide a free high powered translation facility that anyone can use called Google Translate. It allows you to translate custom blocks of text that you type or paste into the translation page, or to provide it with a web page URL and it will fetch the page and display the translated page in your browser.

Google Translate enables users to automatically translate text and web pages from one language to another and search for content across languages using machine translation software. Currently, 25 language pairs are supported. Unlike other translation services such as Babel Fish, AOL, and Yahoo which use SYSTRAN, Google uses its own translation software. This uses an approach called statistical machine translation, trained on United Nations documents. The next version is now a live beta for certain translation pairs such as Arabic-English.

The service also includes translation of an entire Web page. The translation is limited in number of paragraphs per webpage (such as indicated by break-tags “<br>”); however, if text on a webpage is separated by horizontal blank-line images (auto-wrapped without using any “<br>”), a long webpage can be translated containing several thousand words.

If you do a lot of translations from one particular language to another, you can make that your default choice from the Preferences page, saving you from having to repeatedly select the language pair from the language pair drop down box. If you don’t find the language you wish to translate in their selection box, you may want to contact Google and become a volunteer translator for the Google Translate project.

You may need to install custom language fonts to view translated web pages or pages in their native language. For example, most English speaking computer users do not have the Japanese character set installed on their computer and would see question marks (“?”) wherever Japanese symbols are in the document. However, you can still translate from a language page that uses language specific characters and see translated text in the language of your choice.

Google Talk
Google Talk is a free and easy way to make voice calls and send instant messages. This downloadable Windows application makes real-time communications simple and intuitive. Like Gmail, Google Talk uses Google’s innovative technologies to help people communicate more effectively and efficiently. Think of it as Google’s approach to communications.

After you download Google Talk, sign in with your Gmail username and password. Your Gmail contacts are pre-loaded into Google Talk. You can invite your friends to download Google Talk, and once they do, you can talk or IM with them instantly. All you need to make free calls is an Internet connection, a microphone and a speaker.

It offers you good voice clarity with no clutter, pop-ups or ads. Google Talk and Gmail have a shared contacts list and the people you communicate with most often will show up in your Google Talk Friends list. You can go to your Gmail Inbox from the Google Talk window, and even e-mail your contacts directly using your Gmail account. Google Talk also does everything the Gmail Notifier used to do, and can show notifications for new messages in your Gmail account, as well as for incoming calls or chats.

You should have a choice in what applications you use for communication. Google Talk is built to support industry standards, so you can connect to the Google Talk service and exchange IMs using any client that does the same, including Trillian, Adium, iChat, GAIM, and Psi.

Using most instant communications programs today, you can’t talk to your contacts or buddies in one service while using another service. Google is committed to working with other service providers to create a federation model that enables users on any member network to talk to users on any other member network in a secure and abuse-free manner.

Google Talk is a very light application. Download the 900k application (www.google.com/talk/). It will take a few seconds over a broadband connection or about 3 minutes over a typical modem. Google Talk requires Windows XP/2000 with a minimum 56k connection speed (broadband is recommended). After signing in, your Gmail contacts are pre-loaded into Google Talk. Your most frequently-emailed contacts are at the top of your Friends list. If some people from your Friends list already have Google Talk, they will have an icon that looks like a colored ball next to their name, and you can call or IM them immediately. You can also invite any of your other friends to download Google Talk so you can talk to each other for free.

When Google Talk is installed, it automatically starts when you turn on your computer (you can turn this off in Settings). Once you sign in, Google Talk automatically displays the people you communicate with most often, sorted by availability status and then alphabetically. You can also choose to display all of your Gmail contacts by right-clicking and selecting Also show Gmail contacts.

It also enables you to send an IM, e-mail or make a direct call from your Google Talk application to your buddies. To call a friend, click on the Call button from an open chat window. You can also make a call by clicking on the green phone icon next to a name directly from your Friends list. You can have multiple calls underway at once—but only one can be active at a time. The other calls must be on hold.

Click on the Settings link to customize Google Talk, including who appears on your Friends list, people you want to block, saving your chat history, notifications, and audio settings. And, if you are not happy, uninstalling is a breeze too.

Youtube
Founded in February 2005, YouTube is popular site for viewing online video, and to watch and share original videos worldwide through a Web experience. In November of 2006, YouTube was acquired by Google and continues to operate as an independent subsidiary. YouTube allows people to easily upload and share video clips on www.YouTube.com and across the Internet through websites, mobile devices, blogs, and e-mail. YouTube has quickly become the leading destination on the Internet for video entertainment.

Some of the site’s features include:
• Video embedding, which lets users insert a YouTube video into MySpace accounts, blogs, or other Web sites where anyone can watch them
• Public or private videos – users can elect to broadcast their videos publicly or share them privately with friends and family upon upload.
• Subscriptions allow users to keep track of their favorite users’ new videos
• Quick Capture – Users with a webcam and Flash software are able to instantly record video responses or normal videos onto the site rather than having to prerecord then upload the video
• TestTube – This is an area on the website where YouTube engineers and developers conduct alpha testing for new features in development. Users are encouraged to participate in the development process and are welcome to evaluate the feature.

By registering, users are able to upload and share videos, save favorites, create playlists, and comment on the videos. The YouTube service is free and is supported by advertising. YouTube is a place for people to engage in new ways with video by sharing, commenting on, and viewing videos. YouTube originally started as a personal video sharing service, and has quickly grown into the leading video entertainment destination on the Internet.

Unlike traditional broadcast channels, which have set windows for their programming, people can watch what they want, when they want on YouTube. YouTube is an open community and encourages users to send in their thoughts and comments about their experiences on the site.

Videos that appear in the “Featured Videos” section on the home page are chosen through a variety of sources. While users can send videos the YouTube editorial team for consideration, they also can rate and share videos to help make them popular on the site.
Google has ventured into many new domains, and uncannily has managed to redefine concepts. Be it search, e-mail or other applications, Google has stamped its authority. The recent news about Microsoft contemplating to team-up with Yahoo! to beef up their standing against Google has captured headlines, but the question remains, is the Redmond-Sunnyvale combination good enough to usurp the might of Mountain View?

The end of anonymity on the Internet?

In response to my article on Orkutting
which stated that anonymity is what drives people to speak their freaking mind out on the internet…here is a glad update regarding the same.

The blog is a courtsey of MSNBC news website.

As the joke goes, on the Internet nobody knows you’re a dog. But although anonymity has been part of Internet culture since the first browser, it’s also a major obstacle to making the Web a safe place to conduct business: Internet fraud and identity theft cost consumers and merchants several billion dollars last year. And many of the other more troubling aspects of the Internet, from spam emails to sexual predators, also have their roots in the ease of masking one’s identity in the online world.

Change, however, is on the way. Already over 20 million PCs worldwide are equipped with a tiny security chip called the Trusted Platform Module, although it is as yet rarely activated. But once merchants and other online services begin to use it, the TPM will do something never before seen on the Internet: provide virtually fool-proof verification that you are who you say you are.

Some critics say that the chip will change the free-wheeling Web into a police state, while others argue that it’s needed to create a safe public space. But the train has already left the station: by the end of this decade, a TPM will almost certainly be part of your desktop, laptop and even cell phone.

The TPM chip was created by a coalition of over one hundred hardware and software companies, led by AMD, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Microsoft and Sun. The chip permanently assigns a unique and permanent identifier to every computer before it leaves the factory and that identifier can’t subsequently be changed. It also checks the software running on the computer to make sure it hasn’t been altered to act malevolently when it connects to other machines: that it can, in short, be trusted. For now, TPM-equipped computers are primarily sold to big corporations for securing their networks, but starting next year TPMs will be installed in many consumer models as well.

With a TPM onboard, each time your computer starts, you prove your identity to the machine using something as simple as a PIN number or, preferably, a more secure system such as a fingerprint reader. Then if your bank has TPM software, when you log into their Web site, the bank’s site also “reads” the TPM chip in your computer to determine that it’s really you. Thus, even if someone steals your username and password, they won’t be able to get into your account unless they also use your computer and log in with your fingerprint. (In fact, with TPM, your bank wouldn’t even need to ask for your username and password — it would know you simply by the identification on your machine.)

The same would go for online merchants — once you’d registered yourself and your computer with an Amazon or an e-Bay, they’d simply look for the TPM on your machine to confirm it’s you at the other end. (Of course you could always “fool” the system by starting your computer with your unique PIN or fingerprint and then letting another person use it, but that’s a choice similar to giving someone else your credit card.)

Another plus for the TPM is that your computer will be able to make sure that it’s really a legitimate e-commerce site you’re connected to, and not some phishing-style fraud. There would still, of course, be ways that you could access your bank or e-commerce accounts from other computers when you were traveling, but the connection wouldn’t be as secure as using your own computer. Plans are already underway to put TPMs into smartphones and other portable devices as well.

The TPM will become even more important as we move toward Web-based applications, where we may actually store our documents and files on remote servers. The TPM could automatically encrypt any files as soon as they left your computer, and only allow decryption privileges to your TPM and any others you might specify. It could automatically encrypt email as well, so that only specific recipients are able to read it. And it could more firmly identify where email originates, taking a big step forward in controlling spam at the source.

That is the potential good news. But some critics are worried that the TPM is a step too far. Their concern particularly revolves around using the TPM to control “digital rights management” — that is, what you can and cannot do with the music, movies and software you run on your computer.

A movie, for example, would be able to look at the TPM and know whether it was legally licensed to run on that machine, whether it could be copied or sent to others, or whether it was supposed to self-destruct after three viewings. If you tried to do something with the movie that wasn’t allowed in the license, your computer simply wouldn’t cooperate.

The same would go for software. Now that Apple is moving to Intel processors, Mac fans are watching closely to see if the new machines will incorporate TPMs. That may be the way that Apple makes sure that its Macintosh operating system only runs on Apple computers — otherwise, hackers will probably be quick to figure out ways to make the new Intel-based Macintosh software run on HP or Dell machines as well. Similar concerns arise around how Microsoft might make use of TPM to insure that its software is used only on machines with paid-up licenses (as one joke has it: “TPM is Bill Gates’ way of finally getting the Chinese to pay for software.”)

(MSNBC is a Microsoft – NBC joint venture.)

Ultimately the TPM itself isn’t inherently evil or good. It will depend entirely on how it’s used, and in that sphere, market and political forces will be more important than technology. Users will still control how much of their identity they wish to reveal — in fact, for complex technical reasons, the TPM will actually also make truly anonymous connections possible, if that’s what both ends of the conversation agree on. And should a media or software company come up with overly Draconian restrictions on how its movies or music or programs can be used, consumers will go elsewhere. (Or worse: Sony overstepped with the DRM on its music CDs recently and is now the target of a dozen or so lawsuits, including ones filed by California and New York.)

To future historians, the anonymity we’ve experienced in the first decade of the commercial Internet may in retrospect seem aberrant. In the real world, after all, we carry multiple forms of fixed identification, ranging from our faces and fingerprints to drivers’ licenses and social security numbers. Some of these are easier to counterfeit than others, but generally most of us are more comfortable when we can prove who we are. In some situations — driving cars, boarding aircraft — we’re required to have identification. Of course, our real world policies on identification — what kind we must have, when we need to display it — have evolved over centuries of social and political thought and is still, post 9/11, a national hot-button. With the arrival of the Trusted Computing Module, the argument will now extend to cyberspace as well.

Orkutting

Orkut nahi pata??? Tum to Chirkut ho!!!

hmm.. that’s how the contemporary www community seem will respond. Any one entering the cyber world today, be it tech geeks or med science, kids, teen and all…
every one is just ORKUTTING…
yeah oxford doesn’t have this word in its list… but am afraid it surely have to do so…and
it will go like this..
ORKUT (noun) and ORKUTTING (verb).. and hell if it doesn’t go like this…Oxford will have no takers… isn’t it???
Talking about orkutting .. yes..it is now considered to be form of an activity… yes.. see most of the profile on orkuts and you will come to know… it has..It has reached peaks…and infact stretching its own popularity every time…every moment when a new www user logs in…

Here is what Wikipedia say about orkut: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orkut

Orkut is an Internet social network service run by Google and named after its creator, Google employee Orkut Büyükkökten.

Here is Orkut Buyukkokten’s homepage: http://www.stanford.edu/~orkut/

Here is what Orkut says about the site on its page: http://www.orkut.com/About.aspx

Until recently, Orkut was invitation only, but it now permits users to create accounts without an invitation. So the takers have increased beyond anything…its an online phenomenon..

Well if providing links about orkut is why I am writing this stuff….then I would be an absolute fool to be doing so… I have mentioned a few that matters.. as far as links are concerned… just try googling …orkut being the key word and it shows..

Results 1 – 10 of about 13,500,000 for orkut. (0.17 seconds)

I need not say anything beyond this to make myself more clear… www community is smart enuf breed to get the point…

Now, orkut being a big success… bigger to express ..beyond vocab…., many others are trying to try their luck… many have started so called online socializing community..
Gazzag, Yaari, Hikut, Fropper and many others… and let me tell you they are not running short of profits as well…ofcourse they are no where near to where orkut is…but nevertheless, they are reaping profits.

Now immediately the question that comes to ones mind ( atleast it comes to me) is that

‘what is it that is making it so appealing to the public?’

Now it’s a tricky one to answer…
If I start on a note that is not in the favour of the ‘orkutters’ then I will be labeled as a Pessimist..a guy with lack of seeing light… the glass is half empty
And if I start on a positive note… I’ll be an optimist… the glass is half full..
Do hell with it… damn… I am thirsty and now quench it…see the glass is looking empty now..and me too aint thirsty anymore…

To begin…

Orkut is a very easy to use online social community website.
It boasts a good, not very graphical stuff…but easy to use and good enough interface for its users… yaa.. and easy to use is a very important factor here…
It doesn’t make a bit of sense to provide all sorts of features and graphics and stuff…with all the complexities of the world loaded on a page and making the user go through the ordeal every time he logs in… the provisions might be there…but then it will have no takers… so orkut wins a point here… user friendliness.

This makes the page load a lot quicker..faster…and the user doesn’t have to think of a tea before replying to a scrap…its quick..
The previous point may be irrelevant to the broadband and wifi users…but remember..even though internet penetration in India is increasing, the majority of the users are on dial up connection..and it does take time… even the cyber cafes speed aren’t good enuf…everywhere..
So faster loading of the page is also a big factor..thats taken care of as well…

Another factor which is a striking feature of orkut is its transparency. Yes.. orkut allows its users a lot of freedom.. a lot of transparency has been included in the entire system..like..
Anyone can visit anyones profile…
Anyone can scrap anyone…
Anyone can visit and see anyones scrapbook..
Anyone can join any community..though some are moderated it doesn’t really make a difference..
Anyone can create multiple accounts…
Add as a friend request as well..

All this just extend and stretch what all a person can do as an orkut user…and this leeway allows them to do whatever they want… which is more than appealing to join in…

There might be many more reasons..and there are many more… but this ones are primarily the ones which orkut himself can boast off…
Many other features are appealing as well..

I think of one more reason…which orkut promoters themselves wouldn’t like to mention as a part of their promotion campaign… and that’s is the ANONYMITY one can maintain while speaking out..and freaking out what ever one has on his/her minds…without having the fear of being publicly criticized…
Thesaurus describes anonymity as noun :
The quality or state of being obscure: namelessness, obscurity, unacknowledged,
Unknown..
And let me tell you it sometimes really helps…
Take any controversial topic or a debate..and may comments roll in… not surprisingly many anonymous callers roll in as well…and that’s because of a fear..the fear of being criticized..the fear of being ridiculed…but when anonymous who cares…
Speak out free.. crap or meaningful..but free comments…
Freedom of speech has always been a feature of our democracy… ask the media they are using this right to the maximum extent… intrusion of privacy isn’t an issue.. freedom of speech is…
But to come out and comment publicly requires mettle… and where this mettle is scarce..anonymity helps… orkut users find this easily..
I aint saying this is the determining factor…but it is one of the factor as well..

Another question…

Benefits of joining in?

Yes..important question as well… why would you want to join in…

Man is a social animal..and socializing is what comes naturally to him… so online social community isn’t a bad option…reaching a wider mass…

Also.. communicating isn’t a barrier.. since half of the world is already registered on orkut..it isn’t a big seal to find a person..just type in the search and you have profile on you screen of the person..
Many of the schoolmates…bichde hue dost… long lost friends …and all have been able to communicate on orkut and get back in touch…it’s a great thing..believe me..

Another thing is enterprenuership..many business groups and communities..be it adventure sport or any other thing… orkut have become a good source of advertising platform for targeting audiences and takers..
The option while creating a profile does provide with the option business networking…and it helps..
many groups started out as small bunch of friends together and then moved on to bigger stages… it’s a good platform to build on..

Also orkut provides a platform for discussion of issues… a discussion for like mindeds… say for trekkers… or for a bunch of students.. like CAT/GRE/GMAT and stuff…or for trifles; but it does provide for discussions… and it sometimes..yes..some times and very rarely helps..but it does..
I said sometimes and rarely because…

Action without thinking is a sin,
But Thinking without action is a crime

And believe me most of these discussions are onsite…are online.. these people rarely ever go beyond internet to actually solve the problems and act according to the discussions… so I said rarely… but exceptions are always there..and in this case such exceptions are most welcome..And again..as said..there are various benfits people might think of joining in orkut…and different people have different perspectives..
Oh yes, I forgot to mention, orkut as a way of socializing is a great stress buster as well..just being among people and the feel of being listened to helps a lot… its good ..

Just as we think and mention why should I join orkut and try to reason out.. as we answer ourself… there comes lots of doubts.. why shouldn’t I join in..??

Now let me put it as opposed to the points mentioned under why one should..
So comes…

Socializing….
Agreed man is a social animal…. And socialzing is absolutely necessary… online socializing isn’t a bad option as well.. but then..it shouldn’t be the only one too..
Orkut users have become so addicited… that they just forget that there is a society beyond the scrap book and friends list.
One can be so much engrossed with increasing the number of scraps in their scrap book and increasing the head count in their respective frinds list…ORKUTTING..you see..
The actual society in which one lives in.. of which one is a part..actually takes a backseat…if not totally neglected
People spend hours on orkut… socializing… but actually ..it leading them to being a solitary soul.. me, myself and orkut…and orkut … being aware of it is important…
Draw the line..set limits…and orkutting is a very good stuff…if realized…

Then comes communication…
And it is really a good thing… one really cant find a glitch in this aspect…ofcourse..unless the communication is on healthy grounds..
As mentioned earlier… being anonymous and scrapping… or yes.. creating fake profiles… being incognito…and then communicating stuffs which one cannot come forth and do…is really the biggest bane of orkutting…
Agreed…we do have to tackle unwanted elements in every walk of our lives…but the problem here is that the element …the bug is neatly under cover…and hideous..while bugging us…with unwanted … scraps..messages…
Worse still… cloning of profiles ..really hurts..
This means that someone else creates a fake profile using someone else’s name and then just..no need to say creating nuisance for the people and more so for the persons whose profile the culprit fakes… the poor fella has to keep on explaining stuff to his friends…or so called people an his/her friends list… it really is a nuisance…

Also there are many friends… so called some of them… mny not even knowing each other.. and the message goes like this…
‘I came across your profile…found it very appealing, sparky… we share the same passions as well and so.. we can be good friends… hope you respond positively’

bullshit…you respond positively… me being a guy..really cant figure the degree of such messages and scraps…. Ask the gals…and they will let you know…they just want to hurl… they get ‘n’ number of such scraps and can do nothing beyond ignoring…
some of them oblige the requesters as well… it depends..
but then…the whole thing..is just beyond my cerebrum… it doesn’t corresponds with the stuff…. I aint saying its bad..but perhaps I aint good enough..

This amounts to many of the people on our friends list..we haven’t even seen..talked..or related in anyways…and there is a new bud..a new sapling.. of friendship arising..emerging from no where… anyways..

Also pornographic content are being widely distributed…communities are formed.. links circulated… it just is getting beyond control..and getting on the cyber-cell official’s nerves…
Also..there was onecommunity.. defaming Shivaji maharaj..again the orkutter did not have the guts to come forth and opine…voice his opinions..so what does he do? Quietly form a community..and say some bullshit… ANONYMOUS..bullshitting…
Also..community…’ I hate India’ and stuff wre formed… this is what I call as stretching the limits of democracy..bloody.. using..or rather misusing the right to freedom of speech against the bery own country providing it..
I don’t want to get into civics.. hell..i don’t want to go in it… it always screwed my percentages.. rights and duties of citizens and stuff…but the whole stuff under this pretext going on in orkut is rotten and the filthy..and stink is now unbearable…

Then..yes.. have heard of it..got some messages and scraps.. haven’t yet confirmed.. but it said… that the photographs of girl orkutters is being morphed and used for obscene stuffs..that is a big hazard as well..so..just .. well…

Already written so much about Orkut..Orkutting..Orkutters..
Its benefits..and banes.. its features… provided number of links…regarding the same..
Opined myself…

So to tinker on…
The glass may be half full or half empty… optimist or pessimist… determined by the way one looks at it..
But as already said…don’t just sit and watch..as it is said…

Don’t just look at the watch,
Do what it does…keep going..

So when, as most of the controversial topics…double edged ones are debated…and tried to arrive at a conclusion..inference…I will too go with the tried and tested method… weighing both sides equally… and scoring..
It goes something like this;

‘when used appropriately, orkut is a great medium..a great platform… truly a phenomenon online..but when used responsibly and appropriately… if done otherwise it can be a big nuisance. So be wise enough to sign in and use it responsibly and appropriately’such a balanced statement to conclude with…. I guess, I have not earned the wrath of orkut faithfuls as well as their counterparts … just words…
just see… why the hell entire bla bla was needed..lol…
(again don’t try to find the word lol in the current edition of oxford dictionary..you may not find it now, but chances are you deifinitely will in the forthcoming editions..!!!)

Something more crap..

I am myself an orkut user…
Have many friends… scrap them and wait for their scraps in return..
This is the link to my orkut profile..

http://www.orkut.com/Profile.aspx?uid=17749741359900201765

just click on the link to know more about me..
I am truly a gem of a person…and would like to make new friends.. please add me and yes do scrap me as well..(I want to increase the numbers in my friends list and the scrapbook)..lol…
Told you na..just wait till the next oxford edition!!!

Please note…
The sarcasm in this article was completely my own words..fictious…not to hurt any person or soul in person… and inspite of telling this if anyone is hurt or feel that this is targeted for them…then just ..

I don’t give a damn for such a bullshit!!!