When Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook announced that they are getting rid of all regional networks due to better privacy controls, everyone wondered what the fallout will be. Business Standard caught up with Kiruba, Moksh Juneja and our very own Mahesh to set the record straight. Here is what they found!

Link to the original story, by Leslie D’Monte.

Almost 50 per cent of all the 350 million-odd active users on the social networking site are members of regional networks.

The world’s largest social networking site, Facebook, has decided to rid itself of regional networks like India and China in a bid to tighten its privacy policy. Following this move, thousands of Facebook users from India, who had opted for the “India” network when joining the social networking site, will have to revise their settings.

Every Indian who joins Facebook has an option to choose the “India” network. India has nearly 12 million Facebook users, and the number is growing steadily. And there are numerous “India networks” — the largest have around 13,198 members. Compared to this, Orkut (owned by Google) has around 16 million users, but the numbers are declining.

Since this update will remove regional networks and create some new settings, in the next couple of weeks Facebook will ask its users to review and update their privacy settings. Users will see a message that will explain the changes and take them to a page where they can update their settings. When they’re finished, it will show a confirmation page so that one can make sure one has chosen the right settings. As always, once the task is done, users will still be able to change the settings whenever they want.

Facebook has its reasons. Almost 50 per cent of all the 350 million-odd Facebook’s active users are members of regional networks, “so this is an important issue for us”, said Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg in an open letter to users.

As Facebook has grown, regional networks like India and China have millions of members and “we’ve concluded that this is no longer the best way for you to control your privacy. If we can build a better system, then more than 100 million people will have more control of their information,” said Zuckerberg.

“The positive side is that users will be better able to protect their privacy. On the negative side, users like me who have hundreds of contacts who have added me as friends, would now have to sift through those lists and decide who should see what. This is going to be very painful. It will need a software to manage these third-party contacts,” rues Mahesh Murthy, founder and cheif executive officer of search engine marketing firm, Pinstorm.

“This was waiting to happen. The regional networks were not adding any value as such,” says Kiruba Shankar, co-founder of F5ive Technologies and founder CEO of Business Blogging. He adds, though, that Facebook probably did this since the regional networks were a drain on resources without adding any value in terms of advertising. “When it comes to advertising, Facebook can’t hold a candle to Google,” he says.

Another Facebook user, Moksh Juneja, concurs: “It won’t make any difference to the users except the fact that the India networks held an emotional appeal. It gave, perhaps, a sense of belonging so some users may protest.”

Murthy, on his part, believes that the move also “throws up some very important and sensitive questions”. For instance, what happens to large networks? “Is this a precursor to charging for large networks?” asks Murthy. Instances of that are the “Starbucks” network which has over 4.5 fans and the “Coca-Cola” network with nearly 3.6 million fans. “Will Facebook start charging for networks of this size?”

Murthy adds it will also be difficult to rally people around causes that matter — for instance, the 26/11 terrorist attacks in Mumbai. “I recall that with the help of Facebook and Twitter, we managed to mobilise nearly 220,000 people from all around the city to protest against the attacks, and pressurise the government to take action,” he says.

Incidentally, the first version of Facebook was launched five years ago. Its current privacy model revolves around “networks” — communities for your school, your company or your region. This worked well when Facebook was mostly used by students, since it made sense for a student to share content with their fellow students. Over time, networks were added for companies and regions as well. Today, Facebook has networks for entire countries, like India and China.

However, as Facebook has grown, some of these regional networks now have millions of members.

Hence, Facebook will now “remove regional networks completely and create a simpler model for privacy control where you can set content to be available to only your friends, friends of your friends, or everyone. We’re adding something that many of you have asked for — the ability to control who sees each individual piece of content you create or upload. In addition, we’ll also be fulfilling a request made by many of you to make the privacy settings page simpler by combining some settings”, said Zuckerberg, noting that Facebook “began discussing this plan back in July 2008”.

Experts like Murthy counter that Facebook has used regional networks to grow its presence. “Why should Facebook care now? It has enough users in India. The social networking site — which is now the fourth largest country in terms of population, albeit online, after China, India and the US — is acting like a Big Brother. While protecting privacy is indeed a welcome idea, it should not end up making it harder for people to connect,” concludes Murthy.

Pinstorm’s Mahesh Murthy spoke at the 140Conf in Los Angeles last month and we covered the reactions of his talk in an earlier blog post. While you can view his presentation there, checkout the video of his talk below:

We suggest you crank-up the speakers to max or listen in with headphones, the volume is a tad low on this one.

Are Indians really getting their news off Twitter? Business Standard, one of India’s leading business papers popped us this question. Judging by what we see and monitor everyday in the Social Media space, we think this is true for a large subset of India’s online population.

[Link to the original story]

Twitter may have gained immense popularity as a micro-blogging website but in India majority use it as a source for news.

A survey by technology site www.PluGGd.In says about 16 per cent of Indian users regularly ‘tweet’ to get news updates.

While 11 per cent use it to stay in touch with their friends, 10 per cent use the website for research purpose, according to the survey.

The social networking site, launched in 2006 by Jack Dorsey, came into prominence in the country during the 26/11 attacks when eyewitnesses sent an estimated 80 ‘tweets’ every five seconds, helping in compiling a list of the dead and injured.

Analysts attribute the recent surge in its popularity in India to the controversial ‘cattle class’ tweet by Union minister Shashi Tharoor, who is an active Twitter user with nearly 3 lakh followers, arguably the largest in the country.

With its growing popularity, the website is now giving a tough competition to other networking sites like Google’s Orkut and California-based Facebook, which was launched six years ago.

While Facebook has around 8 million users and Orkut has around 16 million, Twitter has 1.4 million users in India, the third largest after Germany and the US.

Twitter’s global membership has crossed the five-billion mark. Facebook, the leading networking site at present, has an estimated 300 million users across the world, while Orkut has only 51 million.

According to a Pew Internet and American Lifestyle study, almost one in every five US citizens use the free microblogging website that asks a simple question “What are you doing?”

“The key to its popularity lies with its ability to send and receive status updates via text messages, which sets it apart,” says Tejeswar Rao, IT consultant with Abu Dhabi- based software firm Vision Capital.

Priyanka Tripathi, an executive with an MNC, says, “Unlike Facebook, Twitter is very easy to access. One SMS can do the task.”

Says Rahul Saxena, a final year student of Delhi University, “Twitter is the best networking site because it can be used via mobiles,” adding that he joined the Twitters’ club during last year’s US presidential elections.

All the presidential candidates, including Barack Obama, took  extensive help of this site during campaigning.

In April, public health departments used the website to provide updates on swine flu cases and in May, astronaut Mike Massimino used Twitter to send updates of the Hubble Space Telescope repair mission — the first time the site was used in space.

According to Rao, Twitter’s popularity is going to increase manifold.

“With Bharti Airtel considering a tie-up with Twitter, allowing the 100 million-odd of its subscribers to tweet without having to pay for an international SMS, it is going to be a huge success for the networking site.

“If the trend continues like this, Twitter would soon supersede other social networks,” he says.

Besides IT majors like Tata Consultancy Services and Infosys Technologies and many private banks are also on Twitter now.

“Even simple things like not having enough cash in an ATM get reported in tweets,” says Mahesh Murthy, founder and CEO of search engine marketing firm Pinstorm, which monitors hundreds of tweets or conversation a day for a private bank.

“It is extremely important to react at the earliest to such problems and the tweets give the bank ample opportunity to take quick action, remedy the situation, and preserve their brand image in the bargain,” he explains.

The term ‘Real-time’ is the flavour of the year. Twitter was recently valued at $1 Billion and the reasons for this large valuation are known to those familiar with the Web for a while – companies like Twitter are at the forefront of the Real-time Web.

Therefore, it is becoming increasingly important to plug into this ‘river of information’. In the slide presentation below, Mahesh Murthy of Pinstorm shares his views on Marketing in Real-Time on Twitter, which he presented at the 140Conf in Los Angeles on the 28th of October 2009:

Here are some reactions to his presentation from those at the 140Conf on Twitter:

This one tweet by @gbolles sums up Mahesh’s presentation rather well:

The 140 Characters Conference (140conf) is perhaps THE leading conference in the world on how Twitter is changing life and business. The second edition is in Los Angeles on October 27 – 28 2009. Our very own Mahesh Murthy has been invited to speak there on the 28th of October at 10am.

Mahesh will be talking on marketing in real-time, using Twitter and other tools. At Pinstorm, we believe marketers today have no option but to use advanced technology and old-fashioned creative thinking to manage brand perceptions on a minute-to-minute basis.

Catch up with Mahesh, if you’re going to be in LA at the conference (you can follow us at @pinstorm and him at @maheshmurthy) – or follow us here, we’ll keep you posted with the video and / or transcripts as and when they’re available.

Pinstorm also was invited to speak at the first 140Conf in New York, in May 2009.

Here’s a video of Mahesh’s talk at that event – and his slide presentation:

Mahesh’s pic, courtesy @lauriemeisel