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SOCIAL MEDIA

With Web 2.0, the current state of the Internet has truly become an interactive medium. It has
brought about a shift from top-down, one-way communication to a vastly more participatory
medium. This 2.0 version of the Internet has enabled users to take part in the production of
online content-publish their thoughts on blogs, upload and share videos and photos, and
connect with friends using social networks like Facebook; all of which are typically easy to
access and free to use. These many-to-many communication tools are commonly referred to as
social media, which are ‘a group of Internet-based applications that are built on the ideological
and technological foundations of Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange of user
generated content’.

In the recent years, social media have become a primary destination for online users bringing
together user-generated professional content, communication tools and services, online
connections, applications and collaborative tools li'om blogs to podcasts. eBay, for example,
has created more than 600 micro-social networks called eBay Neighborhoods, where members
can access blogs, guides, reviews and product searches, and then click to visit related auctions.
Similarly, other big brands, such as Coca-Cola, Victoria’s Secret and Webkinz, have ventured
into this newly-charted arena by using social networks to generate brand awareness and
affinity. Of late, with numerous communication tools at their disposal, social media have become
an integrated communication hub. The integration of MySpace and Skype, for example,
illustrates how social networks and communication applications can converge to benefit users.
With more than 118 million active MySpace users and over 370 million Skype registered users
around the world, this partnership connects two of the most popular communication platforms
on the Internet ‘to create the world’s largest online voice network. MySpace members can make
Internet phone calls using Skype’s telephony network. Social media, has in fact, kicked off the
digital decade enabling a vast majority of people today to use some or the other social media
sites as a part of their everyday life. Some popular social media sites are:

Twitter

Twitter, founded by Jack Dorsey and Biz Stone in 2006, is a free micro-blogging service that
allows users to publish short messages consisting of 140 characters. Initially, it was launched as
a simple way to publish and share SMS (short text messages) via the Internet. Since its
foundation, Twitter has grown into a social media juggernaut, and the popularity of the service is
often used as a benchmark of influence. Companies also use this service to engage with their
customers offering product promotions and other special offerings. Users have to sign up for an
account to publish updates or ‘tweets,’ which are publicly accessible the instant they are sent.
Updates can be sent via phone, web interface, or a variety of third party applications, including
other web applications. Others can subscribe to (that is, ‘follow’) the stream and answer (via
@useraccount) or forward interesting messages (referred to as retweet or RT) to their followers.
Limited by the number of characters, messages typically contain snippets of information and a
link to other URLs for more information. Because updates are publicly accessible and
networking is done by simply following, responding, and interacting with the members, Twitter is
widely used by the enterprises to interact with their respective target audience. Celebrities,
journalists, politicians and other public figures have established significant followings on Twitter.
Media outlets in particular use Twitter as a way to broadcast breaking news.

Facebook

Facebook, created by Mark Zuckerberg in 2004, is another popular social networking website
As of September 2012, Facebook has over one billion active users, more than half of them
using Facebook on a mobile device. The company’s 2012 IPO and valuation of about $100
billion are among the largest in the history of technology.

It allows friends to communicate and share information, images, and videos. Users must
register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as
friends, and exchange messages, including automatic notifications when they update their
profile. Every user creates a profile, with his or her name, age, interests, and other personal
information and posts status updates or images about their life. By default, prohles and updates
are only available to friends and not to the general public. Users add friends to their account by
searching for their names, email IDs, phone numbers or through others they are already friends
with. Once the other person accepts the virtual friendship, both users have access to each
other’s information. Friends can communicate via messages, status updates (visible on their
‘timeline,’ a real-time activity-stream), and chat. They can also share photos and post events. It
is easy to use and free. Compared,to Twitter, user information is typically closed and only
accessible to friends. Additionally, users may join common-interest user groups, organized by
workplace, school or college, or other characteristics, and categorize their friends into lists such
as ‘People From Work’ or ‘Close Friends’.

Linkedln

Linkedln, created by Reid Hoffman in 2002, is one of the largest social networks for work
professionals, with over 20 million users in India alone, which is second only to the US and is
ahead of markets such as the UK and Brazil. Headquartered in Mountain View, California,
mecompany has oflices in more than 20 locations around the world. Users have to first register
to become its members. Its members actively look for jobs and read work-related content on the
platform. It is one of the world’s largest professional social network that has a[somade great
leaps into the mobile space. In 2012, it launched an iPad app, in addition to l,pdated iPhone and
Android apps. In the same year, it bought slideshow presentation platform SlideShare and also
acquired email startup Rapportive. The company is focussing on new partI,crships that would
enable better professional connections and content for its global userbase.

1his social network for professionals has been growing at a rate of 10 million-IS million users
per quarter. By 2012, Linkedln had more than 187 million members” of which 17 million of the
total 89 million white collar professionals were from India alone”. In order to leverage on its
grong popularity and create an infrastructure to help its alumni {ind better career options, [IM-
Ahmedabad entered into a formal agreement with LinkedIn which allows recruiters to go through
alumni profiles for hiring at middle and senior levels. Apart from networking infrastructure, the
tie-up also provides secondary placement platform to IIM-A alumni, who have become industry
captains in various sectors, and are looking for hiring potential candidates from their own ahna
mater“.

Flickr and Instagram

Flickr is a photo sharing website and an online community platform, which is generally
considered an early example of a Web 2.0 application. It was created by Vancouver based
Ludicorp in 2004 and acquired by Yahoo! in 2005. It was initially developed to share personal
photographs with others online. At present, in addition to being a popular Web site for users to
share personal photographs, the service is widely used by bloggers as a photo repository. 118
popularity has been fueled by its innovative online community tools that allow photos 10 be
tagged and browsed by folksonomic means. Users sign up and create an account with Some
personal information that is accessible as a public profile to others (similar to Twitter). Uploaded
photos can be organized with tags to enable easy searches by topic (e.g. subject, eVent) and
can also be geo-referenced. This makes Flickr a powerful photo collaboration l001. For
example, images from the same event by various photographers can be accessed Via a simple
tag search. The same is now possible with maps, whereby F lickr allows users to rowse pictures
that have been taken in their neighbourhood.

Another photo sharing website Instagram, which got acquired by Facebook in 2012, allows
DeOplc showcase themselves and photos they have taken with the Facebook-owned
smartphone aPPlication. People can share their profiles with whoever they wish as well as
'follow’ other

Ingram users, commenting on or expressing ‘likes’ for pictures. Your web profile features 510m
photos along with your profile photo and biographical infonnation, giving others a look MIC
content you share on Instagram. The main feature of Instagram is to share smaitphone
8“21138. which can be enhanced with image filters.

YouTube

YouTube was founded in February 2005 and has become the go-to site for video on the web.
Google bought the company in 2006. It is a video-sharing website where users can upload and
share their videos. The platform is open for everyone to watch or contribute videos. About an
hour of video is uploaded to YouTube every second. To be more specific in statistics, it has 800
million unique users visit each month; 48 hours of video are uploaded every minute, resulting in
nearly 8 years of content uploaded every day; more than 3 billion videos are viewed per day;
users upload the equivalent of 240,000 full-length films every week”. Year after year, it’s
fascinating to watch YouTube evolve from its empty interface from February 2005 to one of the
most visited social media sites 'it continues to become. One reason of such huge popularity its
being localized in 25 countries across 43 languages
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which makes its demographic broad mostly consisting of 18to 54-year-olds”. Users have to first
register in order to upload videos and create a personal profile (similar to Twitter and Flickr) on
Youtube, which can be regarded as an online community. The service allows users to upload
unlimited videos and/or to integrate videos to other websites (for example, their blogs or Twitter
or Facebook accounts) through a piece of html code or via URL.

The telecom services have been recognized the world over as an important tool for
socioeconomic development for a nation. It is one of the prime support services needed for
rapid growth and modernization of various sectors of an economy. Driven by various policy
initiatives. the Indian telecom sector, the third largest in the world, witnessed a complete
transformation in the last decade. It has achieved a phenomenal growth during the last few
years and is poised to take a big leap with the network of its 621 million connections (as on
March 2010). The sector is growing at a speed of 45 per cent during the recent years. This rapid
growth is possible due to the advancement in technology, various proactive and positive
decisions of the Government and contribution of both public as well as the private sectors.
Efforts are being continuously made to develop affordable technology for masses, as also
comprehensive security infrastructure for telecom network. For this, seven Centres of
Excellence in various field of Telecom have been set up with the suppoxt of Government and
private/public telecom operators as sponsors at select academic institutions of India:

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