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Social Software Social Networks

Mobile, Social Media, Social Software Social Networks
Twitter Shortcode for India
01.31.08 | Dina | Permalink | 2 Comments

Aaah finally …. a Twitter shortcode for India which means we don’t pay international SMS charges! Nice. Thanks to Moksh Juneja for pointing this out. The shortcode is 5566511.
“Twitter asks you to verify your phone so we know that you’re you. You’ll never be signed up for mobile updates unless you […]
Enterprise 2.0, Social Media, Social Software Social Networks
Orkut vs Facebook in Indian Organisations
11.13.07 | Dina | Permalink | 3 Comments

I was at a meeting today, and I learnt that Orkut is banned by the organization, but not Facebook and LinkedIn. I was told this is true in many organizations in India. The perception is that Orkut is frivolous and people spend lots of time playing. The funny thing is, I have never […]
Ethnography, Social Media, Social Software Social Networks
JCMC Special Theme Issue on “Social Network Sites”
11.13.07 | Dina | Permalink | Comment?

Wow!!!! What a great collection of articles - I haven’t yet read them in detail but the titles themselves are really promising - covering a whole range of issues in the area of social networking - politics, interpersonal relationships, civic engagement, trust, copyright, community, cultural differences, mobile, And all seem to be backed by real […]
Social Computing, Social Software Social Networks
Flock 1.0 - More Intuitive, More Social
10.20.07 | Dina | Permalink | Comment?

I first saw a demo of Flock at Pop!Tech in 2005 - I remember feeling it was cool because it brought together so many tools into one space. And I’m re-visiting Flock today, withe the launch of Flock 1.0 beta.
What I like:
I’m liking it - it is like integrating my desktop-browsing-bookmarking-tagging-publishing-social networking all in one. […]
Blogs & Blogging, Social Media, Social Software Social Networks, Voices of the World
Off to Deauville, France
10.09.07 | Dina | Permalink | 3 Comments

Am speaking at the World Women’s Forum on the 11th and leaving for Paris tonight. Thought I’d just bring back a post I did a few days ago at Mosoci, on our session. There’s also going to be live-blogging from there, and I will do my bit too.
Women’s Forum for the […]
Blogs & Blogging, Social Software Social Networks, Voices of the World
Free Burma! International Bloggers’ Day
10.04.07 | Dina | Permalink | Comment?

is today:

Free Burma! International Bloggers’ Day for Burma on the 4th of October
International bloggers are preparing an action to support the peaceful revolution in Burma. We want to set a sign for freedom and show our sympathy for these people who are fighting their cruel regime without weapons. These Bloggers are planning to refrain from […]
Blogs & Blogging, Brand 2.0, Business & Opportunities, Social Software Social Networks, Uncategorized, Voices of the World
Mosoci
08.30.07 | Conversations with Dina | Permalink | Comments Off

Its been quiet here too long ……. the result of many many shifts. A new home, getting things to work smoothly, much travelling, transferring from a PC to a Mac, not being able to figure out how to get my Radio blog easily onto a Mac (Paolo has very graciously offered to help after I left a comment at his blog)….

And mosoci β

Mosoci is more than an idea - it is a beta platform, an emergent plan. It is jazz, bricolage and serious play. It lets us play a little music where chaos, creativity, diversity and complexity are all welcome. It fulfils our desires and needs which are driven by the fundamental experiences of our souls, to live and work in an emergent, globally connected community.

What it is not, is a formal traditional organization. We hope the lifestream we have built at the Mosoci blog demonstrates this. We want it to be more than just the two of us. Stuart spells this thought out really well:

“We
know we would not be doing this without everyone that has read our
blogs over the last few years. Social Media built the platform for our
collaboration and the sense that our network and community would
support, participate with us and help us grow. Now it is beyond an idea
and yet it is still being formulated. We certainly don’t want to end up
as just the two of us. Today though we are happy to feel like we are in
a constant state of beta. That’s the zone where it is a real rush.

Thank
you for your support, praise and interest. Our blogs and blogging will
evolve just like our other social media activities are. For example we
are really enjoying bringing our bookmarking
into the feed. For now our tweets are there too. That may be
overwhelming. Then it may also be helpful. We’ll let the readers tell
us.

It is born out of our curiosity, passion and deep belief in the strength of social technologies to make a real difference, our willingness and drive to share, learn and grow allowed us to experiment with and use those very technologies to communicate and collaborate on several projects over the years. More details from Stuart:

“Much happens today by chance. Things also emerge and we find ways to
jump on them and adapt. Over the years Dina and I have enjoyed telling
parts of our story. We first met in an online forum. I set her up
blogging “Conversations with Dina” with install instructions over an IM chat session, long before voice and video connections were possible. Skype
also helped to revolutionize our collaboration and connectivity. Open
channels between India and the US made collaboration around Learning
Journeys, research, and just links and interests possible. Working in
India for most of the last year, attending some conferences together
around the world and we knew we were at the point where where 1+1 makes
more than two.

Mosoci is the platform of our collaboratory around the interests we
love, are passionate about and to reinforce the direction and learning
we need to go in. We won’t be successful without our network and our
community and the power of social media. Blogs, wikis, forums, twitter,
bookmarking have enabled who we are today.”

You may ask, what does Mosoci do? Simply put, a) we immerse ourselves in research and deep dives, b) we facilitate change and help re-frame value for organizations. The time and opportunity to conduct and deliver research and strategies in new ways is here. We constantly push the boundaries with emerging
social tools (blogs, wikis, SMS, RSS, social networks, beta
communities), with clients when and as appropriate. We want to take this practice, this method of working, along with others who are doing some excellent work in this field, to the whole world.

Let’s create that map together, in the hope that the map will bring forth the features of the territory. We want your comments, perspectives, and just plain old honest
help and advice to make this a success. We are open to suggestion and
really don’t want to stop at just a few of us.

It would be great if you would jump in on the conversation at Mosoci and add Mosoci Feed to your reader. We’d love your feedback and suggestions.
Blogs & Blogging, Social Software Social Networks, Uncategorized
Travelling to the US and UK
07.11.07 | Conversations with Dina | Permalink | Comments Off

I will be in the US from July 18th to 27th - am attending meetings in Cambridge MA on the 19th and 23rd. Have some free time over the weekend July 21-22nd. Am meeting up with Yazad who touched base with me on Facebook when I mentioned I was going - and looking forward to meeting him on Sunday. Would love to meet up with bloggers and other folks in the Boston area who are interested in the social media scene or in qualitative research and ethnography or just want to hangout and yak!

I will also be in London for a few days on my way back - July 29-31st where I am going to hangout with friends. Again, would love to meet anyone who’s free on those days.
Do drop in a comment here or send me email to dina(dot)mehta(at)gmail(dot)com if you’d like to meet up.
Blogs & Blogging, Brand 2.0, Social Software Social Networks, Uncategorized
Framing the context for blogging
07.11.07 | Conversations with Dina | Permalink | Comments Off

Had an interesting interaction with an FMCG Client for whom we are setting up some presentations and workshops around how they can take their brands into the social media realm. I sent a client a detailed note on what we could provide, and she forwarded it to one of the marketing guys who felt it is exciting, but perhaps too focussed on blogging and not enough on youtube!

I dashed off a response to the person who is leading this effort that she must frame this workshop for her organization, only then can she get buy-in. It is one thing for us as consultants to deliver on the content, but because it is such a new field here, and because of the tremendous hype and buzz around it, there are many misconceptions; the most salient one being that blogs are individual personal spaces.

My response to her:

Please frame the workshop when you send it out internally - some thoughts on that … assure them we will talk about youtube and many many many more such
services like flickr, twitter, podcasting, facebook etc. All these
are microblogging applications. And we will do a whole session on
facebook - which is the latest ‘hottie’ and is a platform where users
are encouraged not only to create their ‘user-generated’ content, but
also build new applications bottom-up.

I think there is a mismatch here in what your team
understands about what blogging is - and what it actually is. Most
non-bloggers seem to refer to blogging as merely writing a diary. But
that’s not complete, nor does it do blogging any justice. Blogging is the act of publishing content online
in a space that is yours - usually chronologically ordered. It could be
videos, audio, short text messages, photos - all forms of multimedia.
It could be in your own space where usually you use a text-driven
blogging platform, and to which you can add plugins for a multimedia
experience, or it could be within a social network space - like
youtube, twitter, etc

So, in the presentation unless they understand what blogging
really is - and what influence bloggers have, I think we will be doing
the social media space no justice at all. Moreover, it is bloggers
that are the early adopters, analysts and consultants in this space —
unless they had built it, it would not exist. Much the same in the
potential for products and brands. They are the new influentials - and
they have the potential to really evangelize or rant big time.

This is not just an international phenomenon - a recent study
in India revealed that 85% of active internet users claimed to read
blogs regularly! This is their growing influence. Today most news
channels in India have a list of bloggers they call
upon on general stories they are covering - to get the buzz on what’s
going around on the web. When Sunita Williams and her safe return to earth was the big thing on TV, I was asked by a TV Channel to participate in a show on it - I turned it down, as it was not really relevant to either blogging or my areas of interest - but that’s a different issue. A lot of civic and political action is now
being mobilized through mobile phones and online. Many of these use
blogging platforms for their causes, and build large communities around
them by taking them into Orkut and Facebook.
Blogs & Blogging, Brand 2.0, Social Software Social Networks, Uncategorized
User-Generated Content - Just more ‘Us vs Them’?
06.29.07 | Conversations with Dina | Permalink | Comments Off

Bloggy thought three. Something I was mulling over for a while, even shared in a completely inarticulate manner with Rajesh yesterday, who by the way awarded me with the Thinking Blogger Award. He shared with me some links that report on the recent IAMAI Web2.0 conference, with the comment - “am getting a bit restless with marketers”! Then I got a call from a journalist, who wanted to discuss ‘unconferences’ - and I took off on her a little and told her how I dislike the term - any activity that is prefaced with an ‘un’ makes me feel not-so-nice about it. Anyways, it also reminded me about another phrase or term in the social media realm that I generally dislike —- user-generated content and I started my rant on her!

I particularly dislike it when I hear mainstream media and corporate organizations get a high on the phrase ‘user-generated content’. In India, many times, its shortened to UGC (the only UGC I know of is the University Grants Commission!) and it bugs me no end.

I dislike it, especially when, in the background, I hear their minds ticking away the rupees they can generate, behind all this buzz and excitement around the term. When they have not really embraced it themselves.

I dislike it when they distance themselves from it - it’s something other people — oops users do. How many of them have actually generated content themselves?

I am happy with adopting the term when I am talking about content that is created by users of a service - so there is user-generated content on Youtube, or on blogging platforms, or on wikis. But I dislike it when marketers, PR agencies talk about the ‘potential’ in harnessing user-generated content for their brands, products and services through advertising messages on the user-generated content spaces or sites, and then believe they are really using social media in their strategies. Am not knocking advertising based strategies - I just feel they are skimming the surface of the true potential in participating in the conversations, co-creation, community and collaboration that occurs when there is user-generated content.

I think they have it wrong, when they feel that getting onto the user-generated content bandwagon is a quick-fix for their social media strategies. Inherent in the phrase is a division, the notion or assumption of ‘us vs them’. They have got to see themselves as co-participants and partners rather than marketers or advertisers who are ‘using’ user-generated content as another media opportunity.

I simply loved Toby Bloomberg’s rant at Unilever which so well illustrates what I am trying so hard to articulate!

“So I really want to see that ad. I really Need to see that ad. What do I do? Do I search for Lux? Do I go to the Unilever website? Nope. I head for YouTube and sure enough here it is! It’s a must watch. Oh and the Unilever Lux site?
Good I didn’t head that way, my coffee would have turned cold looking
for any mention of the campaign. Anyone for integrated marketing?

Questions To Ponder
Does a marketing campaign have to be “social” to be successful?
Is traditional advertising dead?
Is there room in the proverbial marketing mix for the good old 60 second TV spot?

Diva Marketing Thoughts
Marketing 101 tells us to hang where our customers hang. For some the “tube” means television and for others it means YouTube. And for many people it means Both.

While there were quite a few Neon Girl videos on YouTube, I didn’t notice a Unilever Neo Girl YouTube Channel.
Unilever you missed an opportunity. Actually you missed several. Never
too late to get into the game. Would be a good idea to consider
especially if a sequel is in the works. Work it right and you might
have the next Lonely Girl.”

Bonus link: Here’s Jon Udell on why he dislikes the term per se.
Brand 2.0, Internet And Computing, Social Software Social Networks, Uncategorized, Youth Rap Insights
Does everything have to be ’searchable’?
06.29.07 | Conversations with Dina | Permalink | Comments Off

Bloggy thought two. It’s not worth it, if it’s not searchable. Robert Scoble and Steve Rubel seem to feel so. Am actually feeling the contrary only because of my recent experiences with Facebook and Twitter. The other day, I was chatting with a young friend who is 18, and he told me a few things around Facebook. His dashboard and homepage is Facebook - all his social interactions happen around it, along with a few IM clients. He doesn’t really use email very much. And most pertinent to this post, was his comment that he was disturbed that his whole family including aunts and grand-aunts could ‘peep’ into his entire life. In fact, it was so funny when he related a story about how an aunt actually sent his grandma some pictures of girls who wanted to ‘marry’ him. He’s now got most of his family on ‘limited’ profile — but his friends have full access to him!

I still believe that what you write or say or show on the web is there for everyone to see, read or hear, and I like that openness and transparency of the web. Still I am enjoying the levels of privacy that Facebook offers me. When I blog, I do sometimes (not when I am feeling particularly ranty) wonder whether what I write will come back to bite me some day or how people will view me as a result of what I write. I do feel more ‘responsible’ about what views I share on my blog - perhaps this happens when you have been blogging since 2003 and when your blog becomes your single-point public profile, for the whole world to see - family, friends, clients, potential clients etc.

But on spaces like Facebook and Twitter, I feel so much more comfort - I can rant, I can be silly, throw some food at a friend, hug someone else, share when I am upset or ecstatic. I don’t ever ‘think’ too much when I am on Facebook - my mode is a more feely one. It’s more about me and who I am. And less about my thoughts on a particular subject and less of the ‘Dina’ I want to project or promote or share around what I do.

I loved this comment at Steve Rubel’s post by Ryan McKegney - it resonates:

“As Steve points out above, there are advantages to having a walled
garden. In real life, I have a public and private life, but because of
Google and the general openness of the web, the balance between public
and private online is out of whack. The existing “private web” (IMs,
email) has been largely static for the last half decade, but if it
chooses to be, Facebook could be the next evolution of the private web.
Facebook isn’t just a walled garden, it is MY walled garden.”
Blogs & Blogging, Business & Opportunities, Qualitative Research Perspectives, Social Software Social Networks, Uncategorized
Does your company have a social media strategy?
06.29.07 | Conversations with Dina | Permalink | Comments Off

I was driving back from a meeting when I had a few bloggy thoughts … long drives in traffic and beating rain tend to do that to me! It was a good meeting - regular (I actually said that!!!) qualitative research project among IT students and professionals to understand motivations that drive them to join certain sorts of organizations in a highly competitive field, to figure out a strategy to draw them to my Client’s organization. As we were discussing the research, I suddenly felt - wow - this is the perfect case for a social media / new media strategy —- you have young professionals, in the IT industry, probably heavy users of the internet, a captive target audience that must be familiar with blogs, social networking sites, youtube and the like! When you think of motivations and drivers for this segment, how can you not think of The Influentials, who help them frame their opinions. Am waiting eagerly for my copy which is winging its way here currently. It would be neat to figure out who or what they are in the project I am doing. So somewhere midway in discussing sample definitions, I broke away and asked my client - do you have a social media or blogging strategy - you need one! She was interested I think, particularly since one of her marketing objectives is to build a powerful corporate identity in order to attract the best talent.

Now am hoping it’s a qualitative research +++ project!! Am beginning to believe any organization or brand that is targeting an audience that is ‘online’ must have a social media strategy. Social media is in-your-face today, no web user or surfer can really escape it.
Brand 2.0, Social Software Social Networks, Uncategorized
Supermarket 2.0
06.11.07 | Conversations with Dina | Permalink | Comments Off

OMG this is soooo funny - a supermarket going web 2.0!! Thanks Toby.
Indian Culture, Social Software Social Networks, Uncategorized
Way to go Sify!
06.09.07 | Conversations with Dina | Permalink | Comments Off

Refuses to block Orkut under political pressure!
Social Software Social Networks, Uncategorized
I got My Facebook!
06.09.07 | Conversations with Dina | Permalink | Comments Off

The New York Times had similar thoughts. Check out this really neat article there on how a daughter is pissed off because her mum gets a Facebook!

“But after receiving a follow-up threat from my daughter (”unfriend
paige right now. im serious. i dont care if they request you. say no. i
will be soo mad if you dont unfriend paige right now. actually”), I
started worrying that allowing parents in would backfire on Facebook.”

While I wonder about how the younger generation will react as more of us ‘oldies’ go in there, I must say I am really having a blast at facebook. After a long time, a social networking site has really drawn me in. Along with a few others, I thought I had reached the limit way back in 2003, when there was this mad scramble to invite all your friends to every new social networking site that came about. This time, when I got my own Facebook, I find myself behaving differently. I find I am not inviting all my friends in there, or sending out one of those blanket join me at facebook sort of message to everyone. I find a lot of my family, old and young, in India and abroad, are in there and we’re having fun peeking into each others’ lives and reconnecting in ways we haven’t done via email or even chat. Many of my close blogging buddies are in there too - and I am enjoying learning about so many new facets of their lives with applications like Trip, Last.fm, Ask a question, books, movies, photos etc.

Facebook also lets me feel I own my own page there - something Ryze lost a long while ago with its new UI. Stuart had expressed this feeling so eloquently then:

“There’s

no sense of art in a place where artisans play
no sense of personality in a realm of personalities.
no sense of canvas when everyone paints
no sense of action when everyone chatters
no sense of our place just structured space.”

“The new stuff? Says RYZE first — ME
second. What was the brief? Oh probably make the community more
professional looking. You have any recommendations? Is there a
strategy? Is there a business model? Ryze could have had it all.”

Facebook today offers me that sense of art where artisans play, that sense of personality, that canvas for me and my friends to colour on, that sense of my space (pun intended!). And its all happening in my time at ease, without that pressure to be really active on it that there was while many of us were indulging in some Serious Play at other networks.

Tags: Facebook, social networking, social networks, social media
Blogs & Blogging, Internet And Computing, Social Software Social Networks, Uncategorized
Google has my past - and my future
06.04.07 | Conversations with Dina | Permalink | Comments Off

Google is not merely moving towards “owning” the internet, its also beginning to “own” me.I had a friend over this weekend, and I was setting up a blog for her on Blogger. I had to sign out of my Blogger account to set her up. During the process, I wanted to check my mail, and clicked on my Gmail tab in my browser - and I was shocked to see that it opened up her Gmail account instead. Should have expected it - its logical - but it disturbed me. It’s convenient, it’s quick - but I want the controls and the ability to decide which ones I want auto signins for and which ones not.

Say, if I have Google Reader running - and I have signed out of Gmail — if someone else tries to log into their Gmail account - they can read my mail. Or if they want to check their scraps on Orkut - they get to see mine instead. Google Maps can show pictures of your front door and look through your window
- very cool - yes - but it makes me uncomfortable too. Although I need
not worry as I live in a city where its going to be very difficult to
get everything ‘on a map’ as there is so much chaos in the planning.
They have my presence info (limited tho) through Gmail
and Gtalk, they have my social network on Orkut, they dish up ads in my Gmail which make me feel a little
uneasy about privacy. I have been doing many studies recently with youth, and when I ask them how they use the internet - the response is Googling, Orkutting (note - not search and social networking) and chatting - Gtalk hasn’t yet managed to become a verb!

In countries like India however, where for the large part, computers are shared at work and home - this could become a problem. Not everyone has the know-how or the presence of mind to set up different logins and user accounts at boot up.

Look at Google’s acquisition over the years - they are buying up the best really. And our lives are enriched and simpler as a result. I love using many of these and it makes my life better. But yesterday’s experience with setting up my friend’s blog got me thinking in the longer term - and I kept pondering over - what cost?

Eric Schmidt , Google’s CEO was quoted in FT. Do I really want my computer to tell me what I should do tomorrow, or what job I should take?

“Asked how Google might look in five years’ time, Mr Schmidt said: “We
are very early in the total information we have within Google. The
algorithms will get better and we will get better at personalisation. The goal is to enable Google users to be able to ask the question such
as ‘What shall I do tomorrow?’ and ‘What job shall I take?’”

See this video, although a little dated - it looks forward to a Google world in 2014 - EPIC. Robin Good has a transcript:

“On Sunday, March 9 2014, Googlezon unleashes EPIC.

Welcome to our world.

The ‘Evolving Personalized Information Construct’ is the
system by which our sprawling, chaotic mediascape is filtered, ordered
and delivered. Everyone contributes now - from blog entries, to
phone-cam images, to video reports, to full investigations. Many people
get paid too - a tiny cut of Googlezon’s immense advertising revenue,
proportional to the popularity of their contributions.

EPIC produces a custom contents package for each user, using his choices, his consumption habits, his interests, his demographics, his social network - to shape the product. A new generation of freelance editors has sprung up, people who sell their ability to connect, filter and prioritize the contents of EPIC.

We all subscribe to many Editors; EPIC allows us to mix and match
their choices however we like. At its best, edited for the savviest
readers, EPIC is a summary of the world - deeper, broader and more
nuanced than anything ever available before.”

With the recent acquisition of Feedburner, Google just bought over access to not just us, but our readers as well. They even acquire the internet in year 2017!!

Google has my past, and it’s rapidly ‘taking over’ my future. My actions today, in the present, are building the tracks for that future. A dystopian Brave New World, or Utopia?

Should I really care? Does it bother you at all?
Blogs & Blogging, Social Software Social Networks, Uncategorized
What’s the future for youth on Facebook?
05.30.07 | Conversations with Dina | Permalink | Comments Off

So everyone is talking of Facebook. My Twitter is abuzz with it. My aggregator is bursting with blog posts around it. The social media blogworld is freaking out in it. Even my 79 year old aunt who sent me an add as friend invite! Reminds me of the old days when we all moved from one social networking site to another. This one’s different of course - its more than small pieces loosely joined and the potential is immense with the opening up of their platform. Widgets and plugins around VOIP, presence, twitter, music, video being created with a frenzy. A great platform play. I like this play - although I haven’t done much with it yet.

Still, I can’t help wondering, with all the attention it’s getting and with this invasion of geeks, social media analysts and older folk like me, how the youth on Facebook are going to react! Ironically, they are the ‘older’ Facebook users - we are the newbies. Will they see us as an intrusion? Will they build their own walls now that it’s less of a gated community? What might those walls be? Will they revolt, as they did last September when they felt their privacy was compromised by the addition of new features? Their definitions of what’s public and what’s private is different from ours. Will the more geeky among them, who would like to build on the platform read the fine print and get put off? Will the opportunity for marketing and advertising that it’s going to encourage put them off? Or will they embrace this change and build their own worlds on the platform? Will there be a massive shift from Orkut and MySpace into Facebook?

Hmmmm. Interesting to see how this one progresses.
Social Software Social Networks, Uncategorized
On CNN-IBN : Orkut community helps collect aid
05.04.07 | Conversations with Dina | Permalink | Comments Off

I’m going live on CNN-IBN in half an hour, at 8.30 pm. They’re doing a show on how a community on Orkut is helping in collecting aid for an ailing lyricist. They’ve asked me to comment on the positive aspects of social networking. I hope we don’t go thru the usual pros and cons of social networks, an angle most channels approach the issue from.
Social Software Social Networks, Uncategorized
Twitter vs Jaiku Metaphors
05.02.07 | Conversations with Dina | Permalink | Comments Off

I’ve been using Twitter a lot again recently. And yesterday, when Jace wondered

“Twitter. Jaiku. Twitter. Jaiku. What to use?” I found myself thinking about why I tend to be in Twitter more than Jaiku. I know Jaiku is better ‘loaded’ but I feel I lose the real flow in conversation there as the updates are all jumbled up with updates from blogs, flickr accounts, bookmarks and newsreaders. I feel comfort with Twitter that I don’t with Jaiku. Difficult to express why - just that there is comfort in its simplicity. A cappella versus symphony. Sandwich and coffee versus a full-course meal (how often do we have the latter!). Dal-chawal versus biryani.

What metaphors would you use for comparing your Twitter and Jaiku experiences?
Blogs & Blogging, Internet And Computing, Social Software Social Networks, Uncategorized
Special on Youth and the Internet
04.27.07 | Conversations with Dina | Permalink | Comments Off

Here’s an excerpt from an article I did for Tehelka’s special on youth and the internet, on much urging from Shivam, who put an apt title to it - The Mirror of Change - This is Who We are Becoming.

“For those completely
immersed in virtual worlds such as Second Life, the seduction of intimacy
combined with anonymity does not mean they do not share the joys and
sorrows of their real worlds. My bet is that they do. “Pet”,
a very close friend and a colleague who worked with a team of online
volunteers when the tsunami struck in December 2004, got me looking
at Second Life with new eyes. He had been feeling trapped in his body
for a long time, and when he got onto Second Life, it helped him become
more comfortable with his feelings that he was a woman trapped in a
man’s body. The beauty is that Second Life was a tool for “Pet”to figure out who she really is and how to work it out for real. Today,
she has friends not only in Second Life, but also in her physical world
with whom she can be herself. “Pet” has shared so much of
her period of transition and angst with me, that I feel I know her intimately.
Being a geek, she also helps me with my websites. I trust her as she
trusts me. I know she is very real - there is nothing ‘virtual’
about her, even though I have never met her.

While I may never
have seen or met “Pet”, there is depth in our friendship,
and solidity. I know, for some people, that is hard to accept. I’m
often asked questions like, how can you feel connected to someone you’ve
never met? How can you trust someone you’ve never seen? These
concerns are understandable given the newness of this medium and the
flow that determines these sorts of relationships. Oh there are dangers
too - the pretence borne out of anonymity, the addictions, the
spam and scams, the paedophiles, the pornography. And still, when I
meet up with blog buddies all over the world, how can I explain the
amazing level of comfort I feel!

I single out blogs
here as throwing up a whole different social system than do virtual
worlds and social networking sites. Detractors say, online you can be
whoever you want to be and nobody cares. That may be correct, yet, if
you try and fake things too hard, you most always are found out, and
can be verbally beaten. My belief is that people tend to act more like
themselves online than they like to admit. It is much more difficult
to hide away who you are when you are blogging. I’ve found myself
revealing things on my blog about myself that I would find difficult
to talk about face-to-face. Ugly things too.

And yet, I found
myself trusting myself as I began trusting people I met through this
medium. There is a fine line between the public, private and secret
self, and the boundaries blur sometimes. At others there is a conscious
effort to keep them apart. In a physical world, our lives are compartmentalized,
you have different sets of friends for different needs, and meet in
different physical spaces as a result. My blog is one space where
I connect with friends, potential clients, strangers, acquaintances,
even spammers and trolls. It is entirely up to me what I want to share
of me and when, at my blog. And, I have found, the more I share,
the more others do. It’s just an extension of basic human needs
for connection and community.”

This issue is carrying a special on youth and the internet. I see some bloggers I know like Dilip, Rashmi, Neha, Patrix and Shivam of course, who have made some neat contributions there - and as I glanced through the articles, I felt Shivam’s done a good job of getting a mix that does not perpetuate stereotypes the media usually portrays netizens to be.