Social Media is a Pied Piper

As a part of the ISTD conference the last session of the first day was conducted by Rajiv Dhingra the founder of WAT media. Who spoke about Social Media and how it has really taken off and gave us a critical insight and rubbished the myth that Gen Y grew up with social media at all time.

The social Media revolution took off only in 2004-05 when Hi-5 began to operate and people could start reaching out to their friends, peers through a digital platform and the people who took up to it were between the age of 18-22. Why you ask ? Blame it on the hormones is what I would say ! Social needs started to grow and individuals needed to be a part of it as it was the coolest thing around. Imagine what it is like for an Eighteen year old to have the latest edition of A Ray Ban Glasses or Levi jeans. It morphed into a type of craving which people have and it gave them a second chance of virtual existence as the Digital friends you have may have never met you and you can talk about your positives to them and start boasting but no one will recognize. Then like a Blitzkrieg “Orkut” Emerged and it quashed Hi-5 and it was a rage because it was not open to public and you had to be invited by someone who was already a member to be a part of it !! What more would you need to add to the Ego than being invited to the newest thing on the planet and it was drawing a huge crowd in India and it gave us a global platform to connect and collaborate with Global friends.

For eg: I had friends in orkut who were from brazil and they were friends with me because they wanted to sharpen their English skills and I networked with them to get access to the latest Music and coolest downloads which led to a symbiotic association but soon the darker side of orkut emerged and there were issues about privacy and profile hacking which triggered women to move out and slowly but conformingly emerged Facebook with improved privacy and security and soon the women folks moved out to that and the men soon followed facebook offered more than Orkut as it allowed you to post notes, tag people, Update what you were doing and play games like Farmville and the best you just showed it to people who you want not to everyone. But as you have noticed a trend emerged and soon came Twitter but unlike its predecessors Twitter was a real time people to celebrities interaction and something which Rajeev Mentioned and I was in total line with it “Twitter is an Exhibitionist and submissive platform” people follow you to be in touch with you appears over the top.. But it has not only been social networks business networks like LinkedIn have also been growing rapidly and In India. LinkedIn has added 2-5 million members in the past Six Months and the number does not seem to go down this all just point to one direction that people need connectivity people need an appearance be it physically or digitally