April 1, 2009

If you think Social Media like Orkut, Facebook, MySpace and Hi5 are changing the face of India, there’s a far more worrying trend you should warn your kids about.

Pinstorm, the leading digital marketing firm announced today that its online tracking of internet usage and trends has disclosed a worrying direction that indicated anti-social media growing at an even faster rate than social media.

“It’s no longer small now”, said Mahesh Murthy, Founder and CEO of Pinstorm. “There are unmistakable signs that the rate of growth of anti-social media is higher than that of fast-growing social media.”

“The evidence is apparent. Lack of online civility, virtual ragging, webcam censorship and even VOIP bleeping are becoming more prevalent”, Mr. Murthy added. Anti-Social Media is the darker side of the Social Media movement and there are steps to curb the menace with the recent strengthening of the IT act in India.

Antisocial Media refers to emerging disruptive activities that include VOIP bleeping, Facebook friendstalking, Orkut scrapbombing, Forum flatlining and SMS barraging. It can also mean to include Hi5 hijacking and unscrupulous Twitter following.

The Pinstorm – Google search trend report here sheds more light when focused on deeply: specifically on some unnerving regional and causative elements.

Anti-social media growth pipped that of social media in India some time in 2008 but only now has taken a strong lead:

This chart goes deeper into regional trends:

Here it seems that Delhi is the leader in anti-social media behaviour in the country – followed by Maharashtra and thereafter by Gujarat and then Karnataka. West Bengal seems to be, given its recent Tata Nano upheavals, still the leader in social media. Gujarat, especially, given its relatively smaller population compared to other geographies seems to have a disproportionately high abundance of anti-social media. This indicates perhaps the BJP / RSS combine’s recent efforts in online politicking.

Surprisingly, Mangalore seemed to have the disproportionately highest occurrence of anti-social media behaviour in India. This can almost certainly be linked to the activities of the right-wing Sri Ram Sene and their attacks on ladies in pubs. This is followed by Surat (hotbed of anti-minority riots) and then Delhi – the capital of the Indian political system.

Commenting on this, Ansoo Gupta, Head, Global Business, Pinstorm said, “The data brings some facts and figures to support the feelings one has about various cities and places in the country. Anti-Social Media is a disease that must be fought on all fronts immediately. The IAMAI (Internet And Mobile Association of India) must take immediate steps in collaboration with state IT departments to reduce this menace and make Social Media win this battle for the growth of the internet industry in India.”

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by Sruthi Krishnan

On April 1 2004, many thought it was a prank – the public launch of an email service with 1 GB of free storage. Once convinced that it was the real deal, there began a feverish search for an invite to an exclusive club. It was the internet’s stratosphere and those who belonged had an exclusive address – yourname@gmail.com.

On the eve of Gmail’s fifth anniversary, Mahesh Murthy, founder of Pinstorm, a digital marketing firm, recalls what it felt like in April ’04, when he was one of the lucky few to receive a Gmail invite.

“The 1 GB of storage then was mind-bending. It was more than I could ever imagine – and more than I thought I could ever use. Today I have over 7 GB on my Gmail account – and I want more,” says Mr. Murthy.

Compared to the competition, 1 GB storage was unheard of.

“We take it for granted now, but for perspective, Hotmail and Yahoo, I think, offered something between 2 and 10 MB,” recalls Venkat Inumella, vice-president, product development, at a start-up firm in Bangalore, who received his Gmail invite in May ’04.

Invite system

The system of allowing users only by invitation was Google’s way of keeping a tab on the number of users on board. “The invite system was a master act in viral marketing. If you were in your early twenties and had a Gmail invite, you commanded immediate respect among your geek friends,” he adds.

With demand far exceeding supply, the marketplace went nuts.

“Sold like hotcakes”

“Invites sold like hotcakes on eBay and on a lot of forums that sprung up all over the place, some people trading them for as much as a few hundred dollars! It was fun tracking the going price daily as it crashed in a matter of days, as the invites multiplied,” recalls Mr. Inumella. “Some script kiddies wrote these ‘Gmail invite generators’ and tried to ‘guess’ valid invites. The odds of guessing a random 30-character sequence correctly are like one in a bazillion gazillion or something. That didn’t stop people from trying!”

In some cases, the Gods came to the rescue. Jai Iyer, product strategy head at a stealth-mode start-up, remembers his friend who was desperately seeking a Gmail id.

“He found this site where Gmail invites were being auctioned or bartered away. Someone on that site agreed to give my friend an id in return for a ‘mystic Indian sanskrit chant.’”

Minutes later, the proud owner of a Gmail account, his friend typed out “Shuklam baradharam Vishnum” in an email.