Social networking caught up with me just about two years ago. I started off with a site called ‘hi5’ and also had an account at ‘batchmates’. But I hardly visited them and almost never did anything on them. They were drab and uninteresting. Then I figured about Orkut through a friend of mine who sent me an invite to join the website.
This website allows its members to put up a detailed profile of theirs’ with descriptions about self, interests, passions, professional and personal details. One can also add pictures to their albums and make them open for public viewing. Interestingly, friends can give personalised testimonials, rate them as being hot or cool, lovable or not or even be a fan of someone. Apart from all this, one can send mails and short messages [scraps] on Orkut.
Apart from this there are social forums, called as communities, on this website. Anybody could start a community and post threads of messages that will be responded to by other members of the community. There are communities of schools, colleges, fan clubs, hate clubs, common interests like books, films, art, photography and the like. There is a community for almost everything possible and there are discussions that happen there all the time.
I predominantly use Orkut to get in touch with friends that I would otherwise not make an attempt to call or get in touch with. Friends and acquaintances are on my friends list so that I do not have to search anywhere else to contact them. Orkut gives me a forum that acts like an address book, which in itself is a place where I can also meet them. Apart from that, I upload pictures every time I click any. This acts as a way in which I tell all my friends what I have been up to.
During my early days on planet Orkut, I would be an active participant in a lot of discussions that happen on these communities. Arguments, discussions, opinions and tantrums would go on, on these threads. Yet after a while, I gradually lost interest and I hardly participate.
I have even considered withdrawing my Orkut account for reasons of privacy invasion, getting vulgar mails and messages from people I didn’t know, fear of photographs being morphed etc. But I never really made up my mind to do so because I had a lot of contacts through Orkut, who I would never be able to contact otherwise.
At this stage, I bumped into another social networking site called ‘facebook,’ which happened to be a complete new world. Though it has the same mails, scraps, communities and photo albums in its portfolio, it had an absolutely different feel and look to it. This site had a lot of other applications that enabled us to do a lot more than just social networking. Sending gifts to friends, inviting them to play games, comparing them to celebrities or even virtual buying and selling of people happens on this website. That apart, one unique thing about this site, that I enjoy is that it hosts a lot of games. One can play games such as scrabble, sudoku, snooker and possible any game that one can think of. I solve a lot of jigsaw puzzles on this site and sometimes even challenge friends to do better.
Though community discussions for me, are very limited here, I check out all the applications that I am invited to use. Applications ranging from ‘who has the biggest brain?’ to ‘how hot are you?’ offer a wide range of things that one can do on this site.
As I use these two websites for absolutely different purposes, I happen to maintain an account in both, though my friends list on both the websites have almost the same set of people. I spend around 15-20 minutes a day on these websites, though it used to be a lot more in the early days of learning about social networking.
I haven’t made any friend on facebook, yet I have a few people I got to know through Orkut. One such friend was someone who was also a part of a fan club that I belonged to. A couple of others were seniors from my school, who I didn’t know then.
Having said all this, it is also worth mention that these sites hardly offer anything that we could not otherwise. It only makes the whole procedure a lot easier. The excitement of being a part of these forums has died down for me and now it is just an everyday ritual, most of the times there is nothing to even look out for.
13 comments:
I just started using MySpace.com as a social networking site. Most of my friends are on both MySpace and Facebook and most of them are talking to almost the exact same people on both. Facebook is more about networking with people you lready know and MySpace has been about meeting new people. What is strange is that most of my friends avoid meeting new people even in MySpace. So, why do people need two networking sites to talk to just about the same people? I think you nailed it on the head when you brought up the games and unique apps that come with Facebook.
I've used Facebook and MySpace for a couple of years now. Like you, I check them out of habit more than anything else. I use MySpace to keep in touch with friends. For me, Facebook is more of a networking site. It also appears to be safer, from a privacy perspective, than MySpace. I also enjoy the applications that are a part of the site. Orkut is not something I am familiar with but it sounds a lot like MySpace. I've had problems with spam, hacking, and all that fun stuff. Hopefully those issues will be fixed!
Facebook has a sleeker design than MySpace and was the first to come out with the "news feed," letting people know all the gossip about their friends.
Facebook is now coming out with a chatting feature that will enable users to have live, instant messenger-style chats while they are logged into the site.
The apps help out a lot, too. Facebook is growing much faster than MySpace, especially in the younger market demographics. Zuckerburg was very smart not to sell to Yahoo! in the earlier stages of development.
I was relatively late to the social networking scene. The first social networking site that I signed up for was hi5, but I never really did anything with it. I don't think I ever even logged into the site. It wasn't until the spring of 2004 that I finally decided to join Facebook. For a long time it was a great communication resource. During my undergraduate years I was president of a fraternity and we utilized many of the features on Facebook to improve recruitment and chapter communication. However, as the site began to open up privacy became a huge concern for me, especially in the wake of some particularly awful scenarios involving Facebook. I finally reached the point where I had to deactivate my account. I wish I was still on Facebook, because as you said in your post its a great way to keep in touch with old friends. The newsfeed on Facebook was also a disturbing development for me. Sometimes personal business gets broadcast to people that it shouldn't be broadcast to. Recently, Facebook improved its privacy settings with a granular approach that allows users to separate friends into groups that have different levels of access to one's profile.
Is Orkut the most popular social networking site in India? I always like the sleek design of the Facebook site as opposed to the cluttered Myspace style.
I find it interesting that most people on this blog joined Orkut BEFORE they joined Facebook. That amazes me! There must have been a different marketing plan with Orkut in India than there is in America. I randomly found Orkut when I was looking at all the applications that Google had to offer. I have an Orkut profile that is very simple and I haven't visted the site in a very long time, so my profile has gone dormant. It's hard for me to keep up with my Facebook, Myspace, and Doostang, so I can't visit Orkut that often. I CAN'T wait unitl Open Social makes my social networking life so much easier! ;)
I am not a user of Facebook, or as the kids are saying these days "FB", nor do I use MySpace or Orkut. I do however have accounts with both FB and MySpace, but rarely check the accounts. I was intriged to read your blog based on its title, "I am on Orkut, therefore I am." A lot of the students I come in contact with here at Texas State seem to feel the same about their FB and MySpace accounts. As if being on one of these social networking sites was a right of passage.
After reading your post it seemed to me that you are much more in control of your time spent on these accounts then some students I have met. For students today it would only make sense to take advantage of the technology that can facilitate keeping in contact with family and freinds. It was like what my generation went through when phones no longer came assembled with a house.
I would ask one question though , why haven't you met any freinds on FB?
A barely have time for social networking sites. I have joined linkedin and i think this is the best social networking site for me. I am trying to network with professional and trying to move up and be a shaker, the myspace and facebook sites are good if you want find old friends and family, or share goofy photos of yourself drinking at a bar. Very unprofessional websites made for family and friends, but not necessarily something you want an employers or future employers looking at.
I remember hearing about Facebook from my friend who insisted I set up an account and helped me to do so. At this time I was a sophomore in college I thought the concept of it sounded ridiculous, why would you want to make a profile about yourself for others to see? It seemed too self absorbed and silly to me at the time. After awhile I began to get excited to check my facebook and approve new friends and such, but now I agree with Ranjani, it has become a chore. I check it after my email for no real reason, its just what I have been doing for years. I do like that now I am able to contact people to congratulate them on an engagement or graduation or even just say hi, when without a social networking site I would probably never do this or even think about the person to contact them in the first place. I feel that my time on Facebook will probably diminish when I graduate being as how most of my friend on Facebook are college acquaintances, I wonder if the same is true for users of Orkut.
I like how you described it as "planet Orkut".
Very fitting.
I found I had a very similar experience with Myspace and then Facebook.
I also fear the invasion of privacy, although I have never thought to fear photograph morphing. Yikes.
In India, is there a "live" social backlash to Orkut?
I have found in the US, that as Facebook became more predominant, that MySpace has been treated more as a juvenile thing and in some cases, embarrassing.
I have never even seen the Orkut site, but I am a member of Myspace and recently, Facebook. My main concerns on social networking sites is photos because of everything I am involved in these days. I split my time between being a grad assistant, being a grad student and bartending on the weekends so I get a taste of three very different worlds. I don't like that my friends put up pics of me and tag me because next year I will be looking for a job and currently my students find me on both sites all the time.
I am not too concerned with people hacking my accounts because all they gain is some text and photos of me and my family so - woo hoo - they don't get that much from doing that. I do find it very interesting how different sites become popular in different areas of the world. I think it's just about who picks which one up first. Orkut happens to be the one in India while FB and MySpace picked up the most people here.
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