Social Networking : Who's better than the rest?

After a long hiatus in my stint as a blogger, I am glad to announce that I'm BACK !! (well, not in the true sense though), since this is yet another edition of guest blogging. I'm privileged here to announce that my friend and fellow blogger, Ameya Khandekar, who is a great visionary and a GRE topper and always busy in thinking about whacky ideas, helped my blog to get rid of its hibernation by following up something that I was thinking upon a long time back. You will read that later. But, first of all, let me clarify that the views expressed below belong to the guest blogger and bear no resemblance to what I think or feel about the topic. Hence, if any of the mega corporates who feel annoyed by this post you can sue him directly. Or better still, you can visit his blog, but, after reading this article. Read on to get to know more about SNwS or Social Networking webSites.

-Suyash Joshi

Ameya Khandekar writes,

I and Suyash began blogging at around the same time,but it is indisputable as to, whose blog is popular. This blog has become so professional, that guest blogging is being introduced here. I feel privileged to be amongst the first ones to "guest-blog" here. Is the owner of the blog trying to pull a local Microsoft, by getting involved in such pseudo - acquisitions ??? Only time will tell.

Anyways, Suyash asked me to draw comparisons on Orkut and Facebook. He has the impression that I am well equipped to do so, since I while away my time on such social networking sites more than others. But let me make it very clear at the beginning, that I am able to comment on this subject because my visionary insight allows me to make astute observations in less time. So, my account follows :-

I didn't make much use of the internet before 2004 owing to slow speeds. I began using it in 2004 which, interestingly, is also the year of the launch of GMail, Orkut, Facebook etc. But these things were yet to become "hip" in India. I remember how one's mailbox would be full of "forwarded" emails most of them harboring photoshop edited images which are supposed to make you laugh. Those were also the days of IMs which were a pleasant change over stupid chat rooms (strangers with faked up ids).

The internet before 2004 wasn't tapped of it's abilities fully. They say Orkut and Facebook are part of WEB 2.0 - a technology for which the infrastructure was already there, but which was used only recently(i.e 2004). Orkut and Facebook are innovative cause these sites allow changes to be made by users which are visible to a large section of the members (blogging is also similar).
When it comes to popularity, Orkut was the undisputed winner in India (at least till mid-2007). Orkut employed Google's ethic of keeping things simple and fast to load. Facebook was hardly used by people I know, at that time. But, it is said that globally, Facebook comes on second spot after My-space (can't comment on My-space, never used it) with Orkut at third.

Facebook has gained popularity recently because of their decision to introduce a global platform (FBML-facebook markup language) on which users can develop their own applications. This had added more interactivity to the site. One can compare movie tastes with friends , play games , and do other stuff, all under one roof (rather one domain). Facebook has had tie-ups with many smaller sites to develop some of the most popular applications. Some of the notable ones being :- flixster(movies), chess.com(though I would recommend the original site rather than the app here), scrabulous(one can play scrabble here, but this one is in the news for the wrong reasons). There is an app for everything on Facebook. So much have these applications changed the meaning of internet that Orkut is also introducing similar applications on a platform called open-social. Here is testimony from the horse's mouth (Orkut blog):- the official announcement and an example of things to come.

Facebook has a big disadvantage of having a very cluttered page-layout, also application invites are the new spam these days. Let us see how Orkut implements these applications. At the same time, Orkut should fix some security issues(I have seen a Facebook app which allows one to access Orkut from Facebook!!!). Also scripts which allow scrap forwarding to multiple users has added yet another dimension to spamming. Orkut should take care, that they don't lose a user (urs truly) because of this unchecked spamming.

It would be interesting to see who wins this social networking battle which is similar to the cola wars and the MS-Google war. Watch our for the Orkut apps. I read that some users have already got access to those. Are you one of them ???

Post Script : (by the owner of the blog) According to me, it seems that the war of the social networking sites extends well beyond earning revenues for their parent companies and expands to ulterior (?) motives like being established as a super marketing platform, where an advertiser can exactly know more about his target audience, be it their likings, location etc. Orkut, which is soon going to go the Facebook way, might lose the simplicity that it was famous for. Ultimately, I feel that a good social networking site is one which allows you to Connect with friends and family using scraps and instant messaging, Discover new people through friends of friends and communities, Share your videos, pictures, and passions all in one place AND NOTHING ELSE ! The fact that this comes from Orkut's homepage should send a clear signal to the upcoming SNS's...

In case you too want to have your say, you can post your scraps on my blog wall by clicking here.