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The social media scene in India has been growing at an alarming rate in the recent years. As more households connect to the power of broadband, and with the prolific use of Internet cafes all around India, it is an exciting time to be part of the social media movement in India. A 2007 report by the software industry association group Nasscom estimates broadband subscribers, currently at 3.2 million, will hit 20 million in three years. According to JuxtConsult, a New Delhi-based online research and advisory company, 44% of Indian online traffic uses the Internet just for social networking. The following sites below are just some social media sites indigenous to or highly popular in India, certainly with many more to follow, given the potent mix of a huge population, as well as a burgeoning technology industry.
Social Media Tools
 | Google's Orkut may not have been created in India, but it is the most popular social networking website in India, with a 64% market share. Similar to other networking sites such as Facebook, Friendster and MySpace, Orkut goes one step further by allowing users to create simple forums, or "communities", for users. |
 | The advent of Rich Internet Applications (RIA) have led to the creation of various new Web applications, such as the Social Messaging platform Snockles, which mimics existing microblogging tools such as Twitter. The free service allows users to receive updates via mobile phones or the Web and lets you follow, or "track", other users, just like Twitter. Snockles is currently funded by Web Spiders, an Indian-based firm providing RIA services. The firm has a separate service of snockles for businesses known as Enterprise Snockles. |
 | BigAdda is an Indian social network that is currently in private beta, launched by Reliance ADA's Entertainement division. The largest social networking tool to come out of India, it allows users the same functions as that in many other social networking sites, such as sending notes, uploading photos and videos, blogging, and participating in groups. The difference is its language capabilities - users can apparently post scraps in Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada. |
 | Akin to Digg, this Indian-centric social bookmarking and blogging site is a highly popular news centre where Indians can go to vote on their favourite stories, ranging from entertainment, to sports, and even video clips submitted by users. |
  | Doof and Nunook are two of the latest Indian gaming sites that allow for social interaction and networking as well. Leveraging on RIA technology, the sites integrate gaming with social media and bringing online to a whole new level. Doof allows you to communicate with others via Doof Messenger, while Nunook lets you form teams with other players for team-based contests. Nunook Interactive is planning mobile and "offline" desktop versions of its product that integrate seamlessly with a common backend. This is especially useful in India, where Internet connectivity is highly erratic, and the application will transparently upload game scores to the website or through SMS on mobile phones. |
Social Media News Sites
For the numerous social networking sites, India also has a plethora of news sites to keep the world updated on going-ons in the digital world. Listed below are some of the main news sites:
- IndianWeb2.com: A weblog that aims to provide information on products, websites and Web 2.0-driven Internet tools and technologies.
- contentSutra: India's digital news monitor. Run by ContextNext Media, an independent media and information company based in Santa Monica, California.
- Ranking Sense: SEO techniques used for search engine optimization and online marketing. Provides information on the latest trends with an Indian perspective.
- Rediff.com: A news, information, entertainment and shopping portal. Offers products such as Rediff Mail, Rediff Bol (an instant messaging tool), Rediff Connexions (a social networking tool ranked 7th in Top Social Networking sites with Indian presence), Rediff iLand (blogging portal), as well as a variety of search tools for different lifestyle needs.
Blogging in India
In 2006, Windows Live Spaces released "Blogging India: A Windows Live Report", a study that provided a comprehensive insight into the rapidly-growing Indian blogosphere. Some of the findings include the key drivers of India's blogosphere, namely - self improvement and personal development. A large majority of online users also used blogs to keep up to date with current events across different fields and topics of interest. One interesting find was that, unlike the majority of the rest of Asia, India's bloggers were predominantly male (76%), as opposed to being slightly more female dominated or about even in gender ratio in most other Asian countries. Close to half of the respondents also believed that blog content is as trustworthy as other traditional media such as newspapers, TV and radio. This may have strong commercial implications in the years to come and it is certainly an exciting time to be part of this nascent community.
(Sources: IT News Online: "MSN, Windows Live Release 'Blogging India: A Windows Live Report', PRNewswire: "Blogging Phenomenon Sweeps Asia")
The Indian Blogosphere
The community that makes up the Indian blogosphere is a highly unique one. Various groups have come together to blog about various topics of interest, and there is a very strong culture revolving around creating and contributing to conversations. Yet India is one of the few places, perhaps in the world, where geographical boundaries do play a part in who the bloggers are linked to and hold conversations with. This is slightly more pertinent to individual bloggers, and you will often find them linking other bloggers within their geographical region such as New Delhi, Mumbai or Chennai, where a lot of bloggers are based. Indians have also come together to form groups to tap on the collective power of knowledge of a few well-known individuals. One such group can be found on the blog of Gaurav Mishra, listing a network of Indian bloggers that work in various industries. There are numerous pages listing all the blogs in India, by name or category, as well as collective pages such as IndiaPRBlog where like-minded people can gather to share information and ideas. Below is a list of some of these blogs:
- Indian Bloggers Directory: A site dedicated to showcasing the best of Indian blogs and bloggers. Upkept by Amit Argawal from Digital Inspiration, it is split into various demographic and sociographic categories.
- IndiaPRBlog: A blog set up for PR practitioners and interested parties to get up to date on news and share ideas, it is run by Palin Ningthoujam, who also has his own social media blog.
- Gauravonomics' Best of Indian Business Blogs: In the words of founder Gaurav Mishra, "a network of five to ten influential Indian business bloggers to promote link-worthy posts from other Indian business bloggers in the form of a weekly digest published on our respective blogs."
Another noteworthy blogger who does not currently reside in India is Rohit Bhargava. Based in San Francisco, California, he is one of the founding members of Ogilvy's Digital Influence Group. He is the author of a recently published book entitled "Personality Not Included", a publication focused on the necessity of putting personality into marketing. Check out what he has to say about the book here.
Podcasting
The podcast culture has taken some time to develop, most probably due to the fluctuating Internet connection and bandwidth constraints in India, as well as the slow take-up rate of broadband. However, there are still sites that podcast in both English and Tamil, as well as some in "Hinglish", which is a mixture of Hindi and English. Sites such as the US-based Podtech has a page on podcasts in India, and early podcast pioneers such as Indicast and celebrity podcaster Kamla Bhatt, who is said to be India's first podcaster, are still going strong. Recently, a few podcasting enthusiasts got together to organise Podworks in June 2007. Held in Chennai, the podcasting workshop was intended to raise awareness on podcasting, as well as to help interested parties get started. The event, sponsored by major Internet-oriented firms, saw healthy discussion on how to fully utilize this potent multilingual medium. For a review on the event, check out Tech2.com's article here.
Top Indian Blogs
