A Long To-Experience list, just one life!

So it's time! Bid adieu to #Orkut as Google has announced that their Once-The-Most-Popular social media platform shall go extinct from September 30th, 2014. Yes, the vary social media platform that  once let our hearts pound and broken online ;)
Well, I am sharing something I drew in 2009 for the love of Orkut.
If Gabbar Singh was on Orkut, that's how his profile would've looked :D

Feeling nostalgic? Do share your thoughts here.

Writer's note: Before Facebook invaded our lives, Orkut was a place to be. In the the times of cyber cafes when knowing how to use internet was a matter of pride, Orkut was a forbidden fruit that everybody wanted to taste and if once tasted, they just couldn't get its taste off their mouth. Those were the days when people sat in cyber cafes and were costed quite a lot for just a few minutes to check their scraps. You could see the A4 size printouts on their walls displaying the rates one needed to pay for different Orkut activities for a stipulated time. Scraps, photo albums, favorites, fans, friend list, communities, messages, everything was bewitching. More the numbers, prouder the person used to be. The madness was overwhelming, if you were members to a few communities which were so lively back then. It would make you forget the time you've spent.
Remember testimonials? One thing that was a craze. Having highest number of scraps was like a race we all wanted to win. Calling up friends just to make them write testimonial(s) following the barter system :'D. I think for us, the 80's kids, first encounter to the internet world was about myspace and Orkut, and so was the first introduction to social media. Through Orkut started the "will you fraandship with me" era which continued with Facebook and further. Nevertheless Baap baap tha!

-With love,
An ex-Orkutian

It's Hindi Diwas last month on Sept 14th and being an ardent linguistic person, I felt obligated to celebrate the day for the love of Hindi. I chose twitter as it's the place where I get instant feedback and some intelligent conversation.
Few weeks before the event, I wondered whether #HindiDiwas too make it to the trending saga of hashtags on twitter. (It did not, Sigh!)
Nevertheless, with all the vague anticipations, I started tweeting. RTs & mentions kept flowing in and I found a sudden transition of Indians into regionalists, asking me to stop imposing Hindi 'on them'. The people I engaged and the outcome, to an extent was more negative than how I expected it to be. Well, it was out of my surprise, because I surely wasn't promoting Hindi but tweeting facts about Hindi language. All I meant was that Indians should respect Hindi which is the official language of India, but all I concluded is that an Indian prefers English over Hindi and if you dare to favor Hindi, the same person will start favoring different regional languages in India and bicker about Hindi. Though I still don't get the idea behind such a split thought-process. People can blurt out that Hindi isn't our national language, but have no idea that it's the official language of India. At one point my mind went to a state of disbelief and confusion that how to respond to them. Though I responded anyway because it's a social media practice that one should respond every conversation, provided the argument makes sense. (by fitting into 140 characters if its twitter.)
How can you be so proud to be an Indian if it sounds 'cute' or 'not-a-big-thing' to you when you fumble while speaking Hindi, but embarrassing if its English. When 41% of population in India speaks Hindi & those who understand it are more than 65%, why there isn't one language that can be learned, spoken and taught to every Indian just like other countries? Why can't Hindi be eligible for this (Or Sanskrit for that matter. No, it isn't funny). It's curiosity and curiosity is quite human. Anyways, if people can keep fighting over 'India' and "Bharat" we can surely see more such things peeking up.

Anyways, at the same time on twitter when I had having such confrontations coming by, I did get some positive feedback and appreciation too, across the country. I considered this as a success for all my endeavors.

PS: I love languages, be it Hindi, Telugu, Bengali, Urdu,... French or Latin, and... I Love our India.


Image courtesy: Screenshot is just one example taken out of my twitter handle. I've kept the image here this large intentionally to make it legible.

That 34 minutes power outage at Super Bowl played a favorable role for the brands. Power of social media has turned much stronger with the creative spontaneity of new brands at Super Bowl. The bang on concision worked wonder for the brands through social media, costing no extra buck.

 For those who think that Super Bowl is just an annual American Football game event, must know that it offers a lot more. A total of approx. 4 hours event is actually a catapult for the brands, where they reach to a huge audience with their advertisements. It provides a chance for tremendous advertising and brand promotion. Brands churn out their creative ads which are not supposed to release anywhere, but exclusively at the Super Bowl and having said that, the recent reports say, 42% of total conversation at Super Bowl was only about the commercials.  Hence, it won’t be wrong to say, that the most important part of Super Bowl is ‘Commercials’. Again, the statement can be proved with the fact that, this year, a 30 second commercial spot cost an awful amount of $4 million and claimed it an all new record. Adding to it, this year, Coke bought three 30 seconds spots spending approx. $12 million.


Let’s talk what and how had it happened. Anyone who follows Super Bowl and advertising can easily recall the ‘Blackout’ and Oreo’s recent social media act. Oreo hit the hammer at the right time with an impressively stark idea shared on twitter, when a sudden power failure doomed the event for about 34 minutes. “You can still dunk in the dark” proved that how brilliantly social media can pull off an opportunity, to reach the audience via social media, if you are quick and attentive. Oreo gained more attention with its rapid action during blackout, then its way expensive regular Super Bowl commercial. Perhaps, this is one of the reasons of how last Sunday ‘blackout’ had been the trending Super Bowl topic on Twitter, with 231,500 tweets per minute. Oreo’s quick call-to- act went viral which received 15,698 RTs on twitter, 20,000 likes on Facebook and 1000s of like on Instagram, which has been incredible till before.

Oreo has surely set a brilliant example as to how far and fast must brands race their brain to seize and utilize an opportunity with the help of social media. That can only happen if they keep themselves updated and proactive to leverage every next opportunity.

When we say social media, we mean about a medium which has the power of instant reach, real-time engagement and flexibility. Be it real time engagement, advertising & promotion, or the crisis management, social media is the one really effective tool.

In the end, as what tide came up with its ‘We can’t get your blackout, but we can get your stains out’ ad at Super Bowl, Social Media can definitely take over such mishap and make the best out of it, along with how brands are leveraging social media as the ‘Wonder of instant advertising’.