From pictures of pets and ousting Mubarak to ...?

In 2005, very few people knew social media. They then slowly started using it to share their lives with their friends. And by 2011, they have an integral role in ousting Ben Ali and Mubarak. The thought of where the social media would be in 2015 is overwhelming. I asked a few friends of mine for their views on the state of social media 5 years down the line and here's what they have to say:

"What do you think is the future of social media? Where do you see it 5 years down the line?"


Maliha Mariyam: Social media is a communication platform. As the world economy is changing the way ppl use it will change. It will revolutionize a few more industries - like it has already revolutionized - books, retail, travel. Banking is on the way. It's going to be interesting 5 years.

Olivia Mukhopadhyay: The social media is getting better everyday so 5 years down the line it is going to still remain a great mode of communication and it will play a bigger role in advertisement and brand building. We can see emergence of corporate networks for people to direct their questions and grievances and social media will form a bigger role in opinion formation. It will eventually affect politics and maybe open up better policy discussions the same thing normal media should do but cant because they have got to run a business social forum is more open less personal and hence provides a good platform for people to speak up.

Harshika Nahar: It's future still seems to be gloomy. Today the youth have the intelligence to judge,and react, comment but that's it. Given the impact social media may have, most governments would ban it - as is seen in China. Just commenting on a national issue would not matter unless there's someone who would really take action on it. it's just written, "liked", commented and forgotten.

Mithun Karmakar: FBI is going to use it to screw you. Keeping an eye on what you post or share. They might use that information to form your profile; A matter of privacy, I mean. Social media is making the world know about you more - a bit too much. Remember the blackberry case in US? Common people don't always care about what others might use this information for.

It might start voicing people's opinion in a structured manner. Like govt polls on important issues, election polls, etc.

We can already see blogs, mails etc are already integrated into one Google account. This integration is going to be even widespread in simpler words one networks for all your internet needs.

Facebook started with hot chicks pics but now has taken the shape of what we see it now.. if it had stuck to that i don't think it would have crossed the great oceans. While Twitter has become more of a shouting tool than social network.


Pallav Jhawar: Social media is replacing traditional advertising, replacing traditional ways of reading and sharing news, replacing traditional ways in which NGOs raise funds, putting something like RTI on the web. i can go on and on. Five years down the line, it would be possible to take a video of yourself saying something like had a great lunch pointing to your lunch and upload it as a status on Facebook.

I ask the same question to my readers - what do you think is the future of social network is? Where do you see it heading five years down the line? For a change, I'll reserve my comments for a later post

Disclaimer: The comments mentioned above are the sole responsibility of their writers. The accuracy, completeness, veracity, honesty, exactitude, factuality and politeness of comments are not guaranteed.

PS: The interviewees were not given any time to prepare for the interview. In fact they didn't have any clue that I would conduct an interview. The question was asked to them at 1:30 am and they are required to give answers off the top of their head. The answers published are uncensored and picked from chat window - so please pardon the grammatical errors!

The Revolt of 1857

[Disclaimer: All characters, places, institutes, organizations and incidents appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to any real persons (living or dead), places (not even India, Tunisia and Egypt), institutes, organizations and incidents is purely coincidental. ]


Flitter and Chasebook, two information sharing tools, were developed in the early 1850 in the USA. In no time they had become immensely popular throughout the world. By 1852, almost 3% of the Indian subcontinent had access to Flitter or Chasebook.

In 1854 Royal Small Arms Factory started producing a new, long rifle which would help the British Army in a bayonet fight. The rifle was extensively used in the Crimean war and was later introduced in the British colonies. Mangal, a soldier in the Bengal Native Infantry heard that the cartridges used in these rifles were greased with pork or beef fat. He started fleeting (messages updated through ‘Flitter’ are called ‘fleets’ and the act is called ‘fleeting’) against the East India Company on Flitter and created a page on Chasebook to protest against the introduction of such rifle. His messages were read by his fellow soldiers in Bengal and started getting agitated. His family and friends back home in Uttar Pradesh also joined the Chasebook page. Soon, the soldiers of all the regiments under the East India Company became aware of the insensitivity of the East India Company towards the Indian sensibilities. The soldiers in all the regiments started protesting against the use of the Enfield Rifles. Bakht Khan developed a training routine and videos for the sepoys in Meerut and shared it through Chasebook with the other regiments. The Madras Army and the Bombay army were also facing racism as the soldiers were not given higher ranks despite their qualifications.

In the civil society, Fleets and Chasebook feeds had been floating around about the Company’s attempt to convert the population of India which was then predominantly Hindu and Muslim into Christian. In fact, the few progressive measures taken by the Company – like abolishing Sati system and widow-remarriage – were looked upon with suspicion by the people.

The Company, in the name of ‘taxes’ started looting India of its gold, jewels, silk, cotton, etc. A Zamindari system was introduced which burdened the farmers with unprecedented taxes. A lot of them were forced to switch to farming commercial crops like indigo, jute, coffee and tea. This reduced the supply of food crops and hence there was a scarcity of food which led to price rise of the food crop. The poor could no longer afford food. Thousands of workers lost job when the handlooms closed down due to competition from the cheap factory made goods. Essentially, everyone in India was directly impacted by the oppression of the Company.

Let’s come back to the rebelling sepoys. Mangal was preparing to revolt against the Company and tried teaching a couple of Europeans a lesson. He was however arrested and sentence to death. Sohan in Kolkata got the fleet about Mangal’s death and re-fleeted it. Soon the incident became viral on the social media. Laxmi, the queen of Jhansi, who was ousted by the Company also created mass awareness through her Chasebook notes. Nana Sahib, Tantia Tope, Jwala Pershad organized protests in Cawnpore.

People in all parts of the country – in Lahore, in Madras, in Dhaka, in Oudh, in Jodhpur - took to the street. Hridayanath, a resident of Shyambazar, Bengal Presidency, created a Chasebook event to assemble at the Chandni Chauk to protest against the Company. All his friends and their friends and their friend’s friends joined the cause. Several other ‘squares’ were identified in the country where people would assemble for their ‘liberation’. There was a mass uprising. Ajmal, from Faridkot, took a rifle and open fired at the Company officials until he was arrested. Baanya, who stayed in Mizoram had his Chasebook wall flooded with updates form friends who were “showing off” by sharing the news of their heroic deeds in chasing the Company out. ‘Fleets’ of the news of Lakshmi’s, Tantia and others success started becoming viral and a Baanya, a Raghunathan, and an Ajmal started drawing motivation from them and joined the protest against the Company.

By the time the Company realized the intensity of the protest and blocked Chasebook and Flitter, the uprising had moved out of the hand and had spiral out. Mass protests in every nook and corner of the country eventually led to an end of Company’s close to 100 years of exploitation. India became one of the first few countries in the world to be free.

Getting live updates about the development in India, people from Sri Lanka, Hongkong and a host of other colonies started their protest movements. The freedom movement by India had a domino effect and by 1867, 10 years after Mangal's first ‘fleeted’ about the Enfield Rifles, all the colonies directly or indirectly under the Great Britain got freedom

All the World's a Stage

Acting is an art - and a tough one at that. How many really good actors have you seen? Om Puri, Naseeruddin Shah. Nop, Salmaan Khan is a star and so is Uday Chopra. But, actors don't just work in films. Try looking a little 'local' - Was Pankaj's acting as a jaundice patient any less than Pallavi Joshi's? Wasn't the teacher and even you (despite knowing that he had gone on a holiday) fooled? Didn't Vishwanath act brilliantly in praising his mother-in-law for the food that she prepared which a cat would prefer to terminate all her nine lives to eating that food. Didn't Amin gave an IIFA winning performance when he pushed the bug under the carpet in front of the senior management? And how can we forget Siddhu's brilliant laughter in the Laughter Challenge?

Looking at all these performances day-in-and-day-out i wonder how these people manage to act so well. Acting, indeed, is a gift is blessed with. And what makes it worse is that acting cannot be easily learnt. I have seen people failing miserably to pretend. But, it's not all that gloomy.

With the advent of technology the way we communicate has changed. Communication has become more real-time and online. Imagine that the girl/guy, whom you loved (or had crush for) but never confessed/proposed to, decides to 'go around' with someone else and shares that news with you. In the larger-than-life world of the past you would not only need to be a good actor, but would also need the help of rain to hide your tears and Manpreet Akhtar singing Tujhe Yaad Na Meri Aayi. And only then would you been able to act and give fake emotions (refresh your memory by visiting the above embedded youtube link). But if it were now, things would have been difference. Rahul Khanna would have emailed Anjali Sharma:

Hi Anjali,

PFA my proposal letter to Tina. I had been loving her in the back burner. But looks like the time is right to propose her. Please review the love letter and let me know your comments

Thanks,

 Rahul Khanna

~ Rahul Khanna ladkiyon ke peechhe nahi bhaagta

 To which Anjali would reply back

Hi Rahul,

The proposal letter looks good. Please go ahead and mail it to her. I am sure she'll accept! All the best. I am happy for you :)


Cheers,
Anjali
~ Rahul is a cheater, he is a cheater.

Simple. Isn't it? The social networking and microblogging tools are not there to make your life difficult. It's not only about learning the new tools and jargon, or unlearning the old ones or re-learning the new versions. It's much more than that.

One fine morning on your Facebook you get an update from a friend informing you that your classmate who used to consistently get lower than fifty percent of your score has got a new job and is getting four times your salary. You immediately send him a 'congratulations!' message with dollops of exclamation marks and choicest of emoticons. Had the friend told it to you face-to-face, it would have been difficult to hide your feelings. Isn't it?

One of your friends applied to the same university you applied to. He manages to clear first few rounds while you beat Agarkar in who-gets-more-ducks game. But then, the friend somehow doesn't clear the final round. He tweets it. You reply back with, again, choicest of emoticons to express how sorry you were. Though, in your heart of hearts, you would be feeling very happy. Imagine if he had told this to you in person! How difficult would it have been to your elation! :(

So, the online tools has, essentially, made acting easy for us. They are giving learn-acting-in-20-days and acting-for-dummies books a tough competition - competition analogous to what CDs are giving to gramophone records. Not because they are easily available on the Internet but because no one really needs it. All a person needs to know to 'act' is the use of emoticons and exclamation marks.

In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the 'if-you-are-happy-and-you-know' song gets a new avatar to suit the next generation. It would 'sound' something like:

If you're happy and you know it, use ten bangs

If you're happy and you know it, use ten bangs 

If you're happy and you know it,

and you really want to it

If you're happy and you know it, use ten bangs 

 I would leave you with something we have grown up with - Gabbar Singh's laughter in Sholay [the laughter starts at 4:26].




How would have Gabbar said this on his social networking online tool? Simple. He would have said:

lol

 Yep. That's it. Check the following video out if you have any doubts.



Indeed, becoming actor was never so easy. You didn't necessarily have to change your father's name to Yash Chopra. With anyone and everyone becoming an actor, the world has, finally become a stage.

Shakespeare must have done well in futures stock!