Page 28 Mail Today, New Delhi, Sunday, September 13, 2009
Review
Scraps pip tweets
Even as Twitter SOCIAL LEADER IT MAY BE THE HIP TO BE ON TWITTER BUT
ORKUT CONTINUES TO LEAD THE FIELD
comes close 195% 4% 45% 115% 249% 43% -9% 1,253% 165% 28% 42% 4,452% N/A 200
0
to the million 250
500
‘ You start with
750
1000
users mark, 1250
1500
1750
Orkut, then go
to Facebook
2000
Orkut remains 2250
2500
2750
and move on
to Twitter, the
miles ahead 3000
3250
By Neha Tara Mehta
3500
3750
4000
4250
two elitist sites
— Harish Iyer, new’
7,472
4500 media activist
I
T MAY be like scrap in
your online space but
% CHANGE
you would be surpri-
sed to know how many
4,292
4,126
Indians are still on Or-
kut. Despite the cool-
2,532
2,800
1,562
ness of Facebook and the
2,004
celebrity presence on Twit-
‘ Facebook is
1,428
1,928
1,767
ter, it’s Orkut that continu-
1,294
1,038
1,092
1,104
1,047
1,015
931
es to be India’s leading soc-
808
more popular
JUL-2009
858
984
917
507
715
ial networking site.
395
286
N/A
82
among the
22
The figures are not tweet-nothi-
ngs. A whopping 17 million Indi-
BHARATSTUDENT.COM
FACEBOOK.COM
SULEKHA.COM
DIGG.COM
ZEDGE.NET
IBIBO.COM
HI5.COM
BETAWAVE PARTNERS
LINKEDIN.COM
MINGLEBOX.COM
BIGADDA.COM
TWITTER.COM
MySpace Sites
XOMBA.COM
ans had visited Orkut till this July
— a jump of 67 per cent over last
affluent in the
July (source: comScore, the resp-
ected online traffic tracker). Tha- metro cities
t’s more than 40 per cent of the
who consider
JUL-2008
Indian online population. Face-
book is way behind with a user
Orkut passé
base of 7.4 million, and the newest
kid on the block, Twitter, has un-
der a million unique visitors.
The brainchild of a Turkish soft-
ware engineer after whom it is na-
med, Orkut had started as a Goo-
gle 20 per cent time project — cent see Orkut as a dating portal. Rao, CEO and co-founder of Web- off. “I think Facebook is more
— Ramya, who blogs
as Ideasmith
es of Facebook and the openness
’
where a fifth of the employees’ It’s particularly popular in Tier chutney, “Orkut had a big lead popular among the affluent in the of Orkut, which Twitter combin-
time is allotted for them to exper- II cities. “Social networking sites before Facebook entered India. metros. One of my US friends said es, will take it far. Iyer avers the gr-
iment on their ideas and innovate. such as Orkut have an aspira- Though many have moved on to to me, ‘You are on Orkut? That’s owth could be exponential.
Since then, Orkut has come a long tional value in Tier II cities. We see Facebook, a large number of its so passé! Facebook is where it is “Twitter is a very democratic
way. Says Rahul Kulkarni, the communities of ‘good’ colleges initial audience is yet to convert.” happening’,” Ramya says. medium. You won’t see a Shashi
social networking site’s spokespe- create a lot of interest in smaller The path from Orkut to Twitter Rajiv Dingra, founder and CEO, Tharoor acting pricey over there,”
rson in India, “Orkut is the micro- towns as students want to know isn’t quite like the evolution of WATMedia, feels that the migr- he says.
cosm of the real world. Anything how they can make it to their man, though Facebook does serve ation happened because women But the difficulty in accessing
that’s offline is also on Orkut — dream university,” says Kulkarni. as a midpoint for many. “A social wanted more privacy than Orkut Twitter may still give Orkut an ed-
schools, shops, communities.” For many, Orkut is the first step network is only as good as the offered, and the guys just followed ge. Says Ramya, “Most people still
India’s demographic bulge towa- in social networking. “You start people it has on it. It’s considered them there. “Orkut was seen as have to use a computer and brow-
rds those who are yet to reach the with Orkut, move to Facebook taboo now to be on Orkut,” says insecure; Facebook benefited bec- ser to connect to Twitter. The nu-
quarter-life mark is evident in and then to Twitter, the two ‘elit- Mumbai-based blogger Ramya, ause it was seen as more secure. mbers that drive Orkut probably
Orkut usage patterns — its 53 per ist’ sites,” says Mumbai-based whose online avatar is Ideasmith. People found it had too much don’t come online that often.”
cent users are under 25. Just und- new media activist Harish Iyer. Its origin in a Harvard dormito- noise in the form of applications. Looks like the scrap will be way
er 50 per cent of Orkut’s users Many who started with Orkut ry, perhaps, may have something Twitter gave them opportunities ahead of the tweet for a while
think scrapping is a great way to stick with it, despite being on sim- to do with the exclusivity tag that for conversations,” he says. more.
make friends; another 16.4 per ilar sites as well. Says Sidharth Facebook cannot seem to shake He adds that the passive updat- neha.mehta@mailtoday.in
The White Tiger Midnight’s Children
BY ARAVIND ADIGA
I enjoyed reading the WHAT BY SALMAN RUSHDIE
When I read this book for the
Booker Prize-winning novel
by Aravind Adiga because it
so graphically tells the
BOOK first time, I felt I was a part
of its setting as I grew up in
Mumbai in the 1950s and 60s.
story, echoing genuine It won the 1981 Booker Prize
voices, of the hind-side of Jyotindra Jain and the Booker of Bookers
contemporary Indian urban
life steeped in corporate
Cultural historian in 1993 and 2008, marking
the 25th and 40th anniver-
and political corruption. & curator saries of the award.
Hit by the Foot Maujila Manilal Camera Indica’
BY SHYAMILAK BY BHUPEN KHAKHAR BY CHRISTOPHER PINNEY
This seventeenth-century I find this Gujarati play to be a This is the first major theoretical
Sanskrit play is about a landmark in the history of Indian approach to Indian photogra-
Brahmin lover of a courte- literature as it effectively depicts phy by an anthropologist and
san who cannot accept a middle-class chawl life in Mumbai art historian, and it has opened
playful touch of her foot using the popular, day-to-day my eyes to new ways of looking
on his Brahmin head. It’s an language of ordinary people. The at photographic images. Pinn-
interesting read though it late artist Bhupen Khakhar did a ey’s research areas cover South
was written centuries ago. good job in penning this play. Asian art and visual culture.