SCIENCE REPORTER, FEBRUARY 2013 8

FAMOUS naturalist and the theorist of Origin of Species, Charles Darwin once

remarked, “In the long history of humankind those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.” And so it is in recent times that we find humankind pioneering social networking sites that have made their presence felt like never before.

They have brought about revolutions, overthrowing governments. They have spawned spontaneous protests against corruption and crime and other issues that exercise the minds of common citizens. At a personal level, they have brought long-lost

friends in touch, allowed closer interactions with distant relatives, spawned professional networks and even given a new dimension to marketing and business. Social networking sites have today ushered in a totally unique kind of social interaction.

But, in doing so, these platforms have also bared their sinister side – spreading unfounded rumours, helping criminals snare innocent users and trap gullible youngsters. There have also been instances concerning wrongful penal censure of users as happened recently in the case of a Mumbai girl. Hopefully, as the technology “evolves”, we will find a more mature audience in the Internet-based social arena.

Today, in the 21st century, we do not need a pen, paper and a grand old

postman to convey our thoughts to a distant someone. With the speeds of Mbps blazing the social networking sites, we are on the screen of any computer worldwide.

It was Professor J.A. Barnes of Churchill College, Cambridge who first coined the term “Social Networking” in the 1950s. He defined it as “an association of people drawn together by family, work or hobby”. This term now largely refers to the Internet-based networking websites that enable its users to share their thoughts, pictures, videos etc. This fast evolving culture of Social Networking has permanently altered the progression of the Internet in particular and society at large.

A recent report by Forbes magazine (http://www.forbes.com/sites/ilyapozin/2012/06/26/the-rise-of-social-

Every morning, I wake up with a hope;that nature would smile, the birds would sing;that my Facebook account would have comments;and my blackberry would ring!!!

Despite issues such as privacy and cyber-stalking and grey areas such as implementation of penal provisions, social networking continues to straddle the world stage like a colossus. It has brought into its fold new friends, new connections and new networks all of which promise to change social interactions like never before.

ARPIT JAIN SINGHAI

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enterprise/) claims that newer social networking websites are posing serious challenges to the older ones. It has ranked content sharing interest-based site “Pinterest” above “Facebook” and “Google+”. While Facebook happens to be six years old, “Google+” just celebrated its first birth anniversary and its parent site “Orkut” is into its eighth year. As fate would have it, these companies are already facing generational threat from newbies such as “Yelp” (www.yelp.com), ”Qzone” and “Pinterest” (www.pinterest.com).

Social networking sites have a significant regional influence. “Facebook” (www.facebook.com) is popular in USA, while “Sina Weibo” (www.weibo.com) and “RenRen” (www.renren.com) are the dragon kings of China. “Orkut” (www.orkut.com) is the favourite of Brazilians while the Japanese are happy with “Mixi” (www.mixi.jp). Indians too prefer “Orkut” while Europeans cling to “Badoo” (www.badoo.com). Video sharing site “Youtube” (www.youtube.com) and photo sharing site “Picassa” (picasaweb.google.com) offer a content sharing functionality to social media.

The dynamism of social networking is being fuelled mainly by rapid growth in three sectors – first, software programming especially “user interface/experience”; second, communication networks and third, advanced microprocessors. In 2002, a simple text-based webpage would take almost 1-2 seconds to appear on the user’s

screen, while today a webpage loaded with tons of graphics would take a few milliseconds to mark its presence.

Keeping aside the competition, the user base of every social networking site is expanding. The recent $10 Billion public issue of ‘Facebook’ tells us how hot and serious business social networking has become. And it has thrown social networking into the hands of social marketers and advertisers. A large part of the content on these sites is now being sponsored by multinational companies; “recommendation” instead of “advertisement” is being used as a tool to affect consumer choice.

Research by a social media education company “Socialfresh” (www.socialfresh.com) presents interesting insight into the methods that let the minds of users to be

influenced in favour of advertisers. According to the report, companies are advertising on social networking site Facebook for four main reasons: Awareness, Audience Growth, Conversion and Engagement.

Brand awareness has always been a major focus area of advertisers and has been done through public campaigns, TV ads etc. Audience growth is another part of brand awareness. Companies feel good when more people talk about their product.

Conversion and Engagement are smaller pieces of the advertising strategy. Such engagements through social networking sites have helped companies penetrate the mind of net-aware consumers. Now, advertisements on our computers are being largely targeted according to our wall posts, likes, photographs and videos posted online. Another mechanism works by targeting ads based on your friend list, location and age. A report (http://www.jwtintelligence.com/2011/07/social-commerce/) by marketing communications agency ‘JW Intelligence’ points out “smart marketers are fine-tuning their strategies and consumer attitudes and behaviours are evolving.” If your friend likes somethingand you quite often comment on his/her page, then there are high chances that the ads seen by him will appear on your page too.

Social networking sites have been complimentary revenue sources for online shopping websites. The retail brands are smartly using social networking for directly

Social Networking is rightfully compelling youths to adopt technology in Internet deficient rural India, which, in turn, is propelling the nation towards a faster path of industrial growth by induction of newer insights and fresh methodologies.

The world has now become a global society with social media acting as a bridge for sharing sentiments. Although issues such as privacy and cyber-stalking seem to affect its largely positive reputation, the usefulness of social networking easily dwarfs the fears surrounding its worthiness.

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reaching out to the customers for socially interactive sales, giving them a foothold in the intensely competitive marketplace (http://www.guardian.co.uk/media-network/media-network-blog/2012/jul/25/social-retailing).

Since the early days of the Internet there were attempts to capitalize on the user data for customization of advertisements, but such attempts were blocked by government regulations. With social networking sites, the job of consumer data hungry advertisers has become easy. Because, when you open an account with a social networking site such as Facebook, you expressly consent to its “data usage policy”. For example, the data usage policy of Facebook clearly says that they collect every grain of data when you visit the site. Cookie data and data like your “search”, “profile visited by you”, “time and date of photographs” etc. is also collected by the company. Other social networking websites work in a similar fashion. And how is this data used? The Facebook data use policy says, “It is used to measure or understand the effectiveness of ads you and others see, including to deliver relevant ads to you” (http://www.facebook.com/policy.php & http://www.facebook.com/help/cookies/).

Many social scientists believe that behavioral advertising is “invasion of privacy” and seriously manipulates human brain. It is being said that compared to TV and radio ads which are blindly targeted at consumers, such advertisements are causing behavioral changes in consumers. Instead of going by their own instinct, people are increasingly depending on online campaigns to make their choices. Privacy advocates and organizations such as Privacy International have compared this to eavesdropping on telephonic calls where a third person is listening to your calls and based on what people are talking, she/he is preparing a list of items that could be sold. In a recent development, US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has made it a top priority to protect consumer privacy online (http://mikeyounglaw.com/behavioral-targeting-ftc-to-crack-down-on-internet-ads-that-invade-privacy/).

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Social networking is also enabling the masses to raise issues that earlier used to be buried due to fear of administrative backlash.

According to Wikipedia, “Social media optimization is becoming increasingly

important for search engine optimization.

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Social networking has opened doors to new forms of businesses and marketing companies. Social Media Optimization (SMO) is the new buzzword. It refers to the use of social networks, RSS feeds, twitter etc. to create awareness about a brand or a product. According to Wikipedia, “Social media optimization is becoming increasingly important for search engine optimization, as search engines are increasingly utilizing the recommendations of users of social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ to rank pages in the search engine result pages. The implication is that when a webpage is shared or “liked” by a user on a social network, it counts

as a “vote” for that webpage’s quality. Thus, search engines can use such votes accordingly to properly rank websites in search engine results pages. Furthermore, since it is more difficult to tip the scales or influence the search engines in this way, search engines are putting more stock into social search (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media_optimization).]”

Celebrities, especially from film business, routinely employ Search Engine Optimization (SEO) companies to increase their search ranking. These companies popularize events associated with the celebrities. Many consumer goods companies also sponsor online campaigns

marketed through SEO engines on these sites. It has also led to the growth of a newer breed of customer relationship management (CRM) companies such as Lithium (www.lithium.com), Yammer (www.yammer.com) and Salesforce.com that work with corporate organizations to form a social bridge with employees using social networking.

Social networking sites have also created a major base for gaming companies like “Zynga” (www.zynga.com). Online social games such as “Farmville”, “MafiaWars” and “Angry Birds” have made their creators billionaires. The annual revenue of Zynga for the year ending 2011 was $1.16 Billion!

Apart from games, thousands of online applications (termed “apps”) are hosted on the platform provided by social networking sites like Facebook. Most of these applications rely on advertisements for revenue; some charge their users for special privileges. The developers of these apps are mostly school and college goers. An application market (‘apps marketplace’) gives them a wonderful place to showcase their talent and opportunity to step into the league of ‘net legends’. Numerous application marketplaces and stores

The social media landscape today is vast and varied

Social networking sites have a significant regional influence. “Facebook”(www.facebook.com) is popular in USA, while “Sina Weibo” (www.weibo.com) and “RenRen” (www.renren.com) are the dragon kings of China. “Orkut”(www.orkut.com) is the favourite of Brazilians while the Japanese are happy with “Mixi” (www.mixi.jp). Indians too prefer “Orkut” while Europeans cling to “Badoo” (www.badoo.com).

Celebrities, especially from film business, routinely employ Search Engine Optimization (SEO) companies to increase their search ranking. These companies popularize events associated with the celebrities.

Courtsy: FredCavazza.net

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specially Google Apps Marketplace (www.google.com/enterprise/marketplace), Android Apps Marketplace (www.android.com/apps), Apple iTunes Store (www.apple.com/itunes), Nokia Ovi (www.store.ovi.com) and Facebook Apps Market have created tremendous e-commerce with an industry projection of over 60% annual growth rate.In recent times, social networking sites are increasingly being used for political campaigns. Presidential elections in the USA have constantly seen the use of social media as potent tool for propaganda. These websites have become gateways for politicians to reach out to the youths. The sites are also being used by activist groups. In many countries, it has given voice to the unheard, constant political campaigns through sites such as Twitter and Facebook has led to mass movements, for instance the ‘Jasmine Revolution’ in Tunisia and similar mobilization in Egypt and Syria.

In India too, the government is slowly realizing the potential of this tool and waking up to use it for the benefit of citizens. The Delhi and Mumbai Traffic Police have set up Facebook pages where one can report traffic offenders, upload images and videos of violators. District administrations of many cities have their own FB page through which they connect with people, especially the youth. These websites are also assisting security agencies in extracting information on absconding criminals.

The scope of social networking is no longer limited to sharing views, photographs and videos, it is now common to see common interest websites like Geezeo (www.geezeo.com), CafeMom (www.

Many consumer goods companies also sponsor online campaigns marketed through SEO engines on these sites. It has also led to the growth of a newer breed of customer relationship management (CRM) companies.

Social Networking Usage in India in

April 2012

Total Reach

Through Mobile

Website

93% 86% 66%

cafemom.com) and foreign language learning site LiveMocha (www.livemocha.com).

Another form of networking that is slowly growing is of profession-specific networking. Professionals of common fields and similar interests are now using social networking as a tool for knowledge sharing and intellectual growth. These networks are maintaining their integrity through stringent identity checks and membership control. A site dedicated to professional journalists PRNewswire (www.prnewswire.com) and another dedicated to universities World Universities Network (www.wun.ac.uk) are classic examples of growing influence of social networking.

Social networking media is also being used for maintaining professional connections. “LinkedIn”(www.linkedin.com) is a good example of a professional

In 21st century, we do not need a pen, paper and a grand old postman to convey our thoughts to a distant someone. With the speeds of Mbps blazing the social networking sites, we are on the screen of any computer worldwide.

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networking website. The site acts as a bridge between various professionals and is routinely used by recruiters for short-listing candidates for a job profile. It also helps professionals to get recommendations and references. Job listing sites are also using social networking to post new vacancies thereby giving job-seekers more opportunities to compete.

Another form of social networking that is growing at a very fast rate concerns the dating and matrimonial websites; Jeevansaathi (www.jeevansathi.com) and BharatMatrimony (www.bharatmtrimony.com) are good examples of such sites. Here users create individual profiles that can be seen by other users and also shortlist prospective brides/grooms for marriage.

The Dark SideIn contrast to the ways and means by which social networking media is phenomenally expanding the nomenclature of e-commerce terminology, there are some areas of concern that have not been addressed adequately by companies and governments alike.

Apart from the privacy concerns mentioned earlier, social e-commerce is causing a major splurge on unnecessary and unproductive interests. Social networking sites are also being held responsible for many crimes like cyber-bullying and abuse, posting and distribution of offensive content, identity theft, cyberstalking, spreading rumors, Internet scams and ‘unfriending’ murders. Social networking sites have become a safe haven for gender-related offenders and pedophiles. Children are the most vulnerable to the dangers of social media considering their tender age and desperation of being recognized.

Social networking is also being held responsible for rise in relationship wreckage; many cases of breakups, divorces and suicides have been reported due to the depression and agony caused by unfaithfulness online. Ambiguity of Internet-related laws around the world is considered to be a major reason for the stealth of the cyber crimes. The IACP Centre for Social Media (www.iacpsocialmedia.org) is a partnership programme assisting law enforcement agencies in using social media to prevent and solve crimes, strengthen police-community relations, and enhance services. In India, law enforcement agencies have dedicated sections to deal with cyber crimes, for instance, the Mumbai Police Cyber Cell (http://cybercellmumbai.gov.in/). Another website, www.indiacyberlab.in

is very useful to learn about the Indian cyber laws and cyber crimes.

Nevertheless, ‘social networking’ is expanding its horizon to engulf larger portions of online business. It is bringing people of varied nationalities together and creating tons of opportunities with a level playing field in the globalized economy. The graph of social interaction on web is now tilting towards reputational interaction.

At the same time, it is rightfully compelling youths to adopt technology in Internet deficient rural India, which, in turn, is propelling the nation towards a faster path of industrial growth by induction of newer insights and fresh methodologies. Social networking is also enabling the masses to raise issues that earlier used to be buried due to fear of administrative backlash. The world has now become a global society with social media acting as a bridge for sharing sentiments. Although issues such as privacy and cyber-stalking seem to affect its largely positive reputation, the usefulness of social networking easily dwarfs the fears surrounding its worthiness.

As Mark Zuckerberg, CEO& Founder of Facebook says, “When you give everyone a voice and give people power, the system usually ends up in a really good place.” With advancement of technology and increased use of hand-held gadgets such as tablets, smartphones and readers, the future of social networking seems to be bright.

Mr Arpit Jain Singhai is District Informatics Offi cer/Scientifi c Offi cer, National Informatics Centre (NIC), Adjacent to Treasury Offi ce, Collectorate, Moradabad (UP)-244001; E-mail: arpit.jain@nic.in

Launch Dates of Major Social Network Sites

1997 Six Degrees.com

1998 Live Journal , AsianAvenue

1999 Black Planet LunarStorm (SNS relaunch)

2000 MiGente Six Degree closes

2001 Cyworld Ryze Fotolog

2002 Friendster Skyblog Couchsurfi ng Linkedin

2003 MySpace Tribe.net, Open BC/Xing Last FM Orkut, Dogster Hi5 Multiply, aSmallWorld Flickr, Piczo, Mixi, Facebook (Harvard only) Dodgeball, Care2 (SNS relaunch)

2004 Catster Hyves Yahoo! 360 YouTube, Xanga (SNS relaunch) Cyworld (China)

2005 Bebo (SNS relaunch) Facebook (high school networks)

Ning AsianAvenue, BlackPlanet (relaunch) QQ (relaunch) Facebook (corporate networks) Windows Live Spaces

2006 Cyworld (U.S.) Twitter MyChurch Facebook (everyone)

In India too, the government is slowly realizing the potential of this tool and waking up to use it for the benefit of citizens. District administrations of many cities have their own FB page through which they connect with people, especially the youth. These websites are also assisting security agencies in extracting information on absconding criminals.

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