BPO People gets a Social Networking Site - Its Cool

It's the era of social networking groups. When everyone is either joining or starting a social networking group on the net these days, how could the young crowd from the Indian BPO sector be left behind? That's why BPO Voice, a new social networking group for people with a background in the BPO industry, is fast catching up in cyberspace.

Formed a few months ago but opened for membership only last month, the group meant exclusively for BPO employees already has over 200 members. ‘‘The idea took shape when I started using some of the BPO communities on other networking sites,'' says Amit Saxena, the brain behind the latest online community.

"The more I used other networking sites, the more I realised how they could offer much more than what they were currently giving,'' says Saxena. "Most networking groups in Google, Yahoo or even Orkut, offer nothing more than a space for reuniting old friends and making new ones. In fact, most of what they have is either spam or recruitment drives or some mindless activity or games," explains Saxena.

Realising the potential, this former BPO employee saw the need to make use of the collective intelligence of BPO employees and create a platform to share their domain related expertise. Saxena and his band of friends, Ankush Wadhwa and Siddharth Jindal who joined him later, have their job cut out.

Besides improving the overall image of the BPO industry, they plan to create the biggest online resource for BPO professionals. They also want to help these professionals in sharing knowledge and opportunities among themselves on a common platform nationwide. What's more, the site also plans to take up studies and research on lifestyle and career related challenges through various surveys and polls.

While the number of hits and request for membership is increasing by the day, the site is careful to sieve through every request. "We are quite selective about membership. We go through each request and weed out irrelevant members and try our best to remain consistent in our quality in content and membership. There have been occasions when we have asked people to leave simply because their profile did not match our group," says Saxena.

Indian Edition of Orkut with Themes introduced by orkut.co.in Google

Some updates for Orkut - the most popular social networking site in India.

Aditya informs that Google has officially launched the Indian edition of Orkut while Raj discovers themes inside his Orkut account. You may not see them as Orkut themes are not enabled for everyone yet.

The orkut.com site now redirects you to orkut.co.in if you visit this website from India. Orkut.in however remains a parked domain serving AdSense ads.

Deadlock for Google,Facebook Continues.....

Google Inc's online communities have little traction in the United States, but the search leader continues to seek a spot in the social networking hierarchy.

First, it must contend with Facebook, the No. 2 online hangout behind MySpace.

Days after Google unveiled Friend Connect, which lets the sites of musicians, political campaigns and others incorporate profile data from several social networks, Facebook began to block the programme.

Although Google was taking advantage of the same tools that Facebook made available free to other outside developers, Facebook said Google was violating Facebook's restrictions on data sharing. The two sides remain in a stalemate.

Google, whose Orkut social network has tens of millions of users in Brazil, tried to reach further into social networking with the November unveiling of a consortium called OpenSocial, which lets developers write applications for use on multiple social networks.

News Corp's MySpace has joined, but Facebook hasn't.

This month, Google unveiled Friend Connect, which promises to pool profile data from Facebook, Google Talk, Orkut, LinkedIn, Plaxo and hi5, though not MySpace.

The profile information gets incorporated into other sites -- a political campaign, for instance, can build communities of supporters by tapping existing networks -- with Google serving as the intermediary.

Facebook quickly objected, citing privacy concerns. Normally dealing with other companies one on one, Facebook can block a service it feels violates its rules.

With Google as the intermediary, Facebook lost that leverage, so it decided to block Friend Connect entirely.

In a blog posting, Facebook developer Charlie Cheever said Google's Friend Connect “redistributes user information from Facebook to other developers without users' knowledge, which doesn't respect the privacy standards our users have come to expect.”

Google responded, acknowledging it passes along data. But it said sharing is limited to links for profile photos of users and friends who have expressly consented to sharing with that particular site.

The user's name and numeric ID on Facebook are replaced with Google's own identifiers, Google said in a company blog post.

Google also said it purges Facebook data from its systems every 30 minutes, more frequently than the 24 hours required by Facebook.

Facebook has run into privacy challenges before, most recently when it unveiled a marketing tool called "Beacon" that tracked purchases Facebook members made on other websites and sent alerts to their Facebook friends about the transactions.

But Rachel Happe, research manager at IDC, said the dispute is ultimately about control rather than privacy. She said Google's Friend Connect "starts to eat into other people's value proposition, which is why you saw Facebook object to it."

Is This a Bug? Have People Stopped Using Facebook !

I have some 868 friends on Facebook but according to the news feed, none of the friends performed any activity on Facebook since yesterday. They didn’t join any new Facebook group nor did anyone upload photos or poke someone on Facebook.


It sounds improbable but Jeremy Wagstaff has made a similar observation with his group of 343 friends - they all have been in dormant state on Facebook since yesterday.

It could well be a bug in Facebook news feeds but you never know because loyalties change too fast on the Internet. Join our Facebook Page.

MySpace India Website Is Now Live - Watch Out Orkut!

News Corp. today officially launched the MySpace India website at in.myspace.com in a market that is almost ruled by Google’s Orkut and even Facebook to a certain degree.

And in an effort to attract the young crowd here, MySpace India is also sponsoring a TV program that will broadcast on Star TV.

Here’s my MySpace page though I am not an active member.

PS: The more obvious web URLs for MySpace India like myspace.in and myspace.co.in are already taken by domain squatters.

Update: Nikhil has an interview with Tarun Tripathi and Amit Kapur of MySpace where they reveal that MySpace India has around half a million users. That number could grow as more Bollywood celebrities and Fashion Designers open up their MySpace accounts.

Yahoo! Integrates Images from Facebook Profiles in Search Results

Yahoo! is now displaying pictures from Facebook profiles next to search results just the way Google shows image thumbnails in search pages.

To see if your Facebook picture shows up in Yahoo, either search for your own name in quotes and scan through the search page or, a better option, try the following query on Yahoo!

site:facebook.com "Your Name" - check this live example for Michael Parekh.

The thumbnail images are served directly from Facebook servers and not cached by Yahoo! - that’s good thinking because if you update your profile picture on Facebook, it will immediately show up in Yahoo! search pages.

An AdSense Success Story -Scrabble on Facebook

More than 700k sessions of Scrabulous are played on any given day by some 3.2 million Facebook users who have added this popular game to their profiles.

And Google AdSense is helping Scrabulous developers, Jayant Agarwalla and Rajat Agarwalla, monetize their creation.

scrabulous-brothers The brother duo is making around $20k a month from AdSense ads that are displayed above and below the Scrabble board on Facebook.


In fact, this Scrabulous page on Facebook may be quite popular among advertisers because the audience on that page will almost always stay for an extended duration and they are therefore very likely to notice advertisements.

Facebook members, money 'Beckon'

Facebook Inc's popular online hangout so far has proven to be a better place for promoting fun and games than peddling products. But a new application aims to inject more commerce into the social playground by paying Facebook members who help merchants sell to their friends.

The program, called Market Lodge, revolves around the notion that consumers are more likely to buy merchandise or services recommended by someone they know and trust.

Market Lodge, made by a startup called bSocial Networks Inc, will pay Facebook members a 10 per cent commission on all sales made on their recommendations.

Facebook tried to capitalize on the bonds of friendship last year by introducing a marketing system that includes broadcasting product endorsements among people who know each other.

The strategy hasn't paid off yet, largely because many of Facebook's users rebelled against a feature called "Beacon" that tracked and shared information about their purchases and other actions made on other Web sites. Spurred by the backlash, Palo Alto based Facebook now allows its users to turn off Beacon.
Colorado based bSocial is betting that Facebook's roughly 67 million users will be more receptive to an approach that dangles a financial incentive for participating.
Facebook members who decide to use Market Lodge can customize their own stores, selecting from more than 1,200 products sold by about 50 different merchants.

Once the personal store is set up, Facebook users can then invite others in their network to check out the stuff they're recommending. Market Lodge users can make purchases from their own stores and still qualify for the 10 per cent sales commission.

The entire inventory, order processing and delivery arrangements are handled by the merchants, just as they would be for any other sale.

"We think this could be very lucrative for Facebook's members," said bSocial co-founder Sue Spielman. More than 100 people have signed up for Market Lodge since it quietly rolled out last week.

For now, Facebook won't receive a cut of the sales made through Market Lodge, but bSocial Networks eventually may consider sharing revenue with the social network or other Web sites that might be interested in the application, Spielman said.

Facebook Flaw Exposes Member Pics - Take a look

A security lapse made it possible for unwelcome strangers to peruse personal photos posted on Facebook Inc's popular online hangout, circumventing a recent upgrade to the website's privacy controls.

The Associated Press verified the loophole after receiving a tip from a Byron Ng, a Vancouver, Canada computer technician. Ng began looking for security weaknesses last week after Facebook unveiled more ways for 67 million members to restrict access to their personal profiles.

But the added protections weren't enough to prevent Ng from pulling up the most recent pictures posted by Facebook members and their friends, even if the privacy settings were set to restrict the audience to a select few.

After being alerted, Facebook spokeswoman Brandee Barker said the Palo Alto-based company fixed the bug within an hour.

"We take privacy very seriously and continue to make enhancements to the site," she said.

The latest lapse serves as another reminder of the perils of sharing sensitive photos and personal information online, even when websites pledge to shield the information from prying eyes.

Before the fix, Ng's computer-coding trick enabled him to find private pictures of Paris Hilton at the Emmy awards and of her brother Barron Nicholas drinking a beer with friends and photos of many other people who hadn't granted access to Ng.

Using Ng's template, an AP reporter was able to look up random people on Facebook and see the most recent pictures posted on their personal profiles even if the photos were supposed to be invisible to strangers.

The revealed snapshots showed Italian vacations, office gatherings, holiday parties and college students on spring break. The AP also was able to click through a personal photo album that Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg posted in November 2005.

Some members of social networks like Facebook post photos of themselves or others in potentially embarrassing or compromising situations that include illegal drug use or underage drinking that can cause trouble at school or work.

None of the photos reviewed by the AP appeared to fall into this category. Despite the risks, more people than ever -- especially teenagers and young adults -- are publishing personal photos and other intimate details about their lives on the Internet.

News Corp's MySpace.com, the only online social network larger than Facebook, suffered a security breach that exposed its members' private photos earlier this year.

Take a Look At the Most Popular Social Networking Sites around the World

Like the Internet World Maps, this picture illustrates the popularity of various social networks across different countries of the world.

How to Find People Who Are Yet To Accept Your Request to Become Facebook Friends

When you send a friend request to someone on Facebook, they can either approve your friendship request, decline it or leave the request untouched.

Now Facebook will inform you when friends approve your request but there’s no easy way to figure out the names of people who are yet to approve your friendship requests.

So here’s a simple Facebook hack to help you retrieve this information:

1. Open your Facebook Privacy page by clicking the "privacy" link at the top right corner.

2. Click the link that says "Poke, Message, and Friend Request"

3. The next screen will show you a list of Facebook members who are not your friends but can see some parts of your Facebook profile. They are in the list because you have contacted them in the past through a poke or friend request though you are not mutual friends.

And this is the list that has all the names who have not confirmed your friendship request yet. Unfortunately, there is no way to cancel a friend request once it has been made so you cannot delete names from the list on your own.

Facebook Adds a Clear Invites Option, But You Still Need Ignore All

Finally, Facebook has a added a "clear all" option that will immediately remove all pending invites from the Facebook requests page.

The only caveat is that you must have at least 25 pending invites in Facebook before the "clear all" option is visible. Everyone else can use the "unofficial"

ORKUT took Rest atleast for some time.... Read it completely

Half an hour back I opened the orkut but it is displying the following messeage.

Oops! You caught us in the midst of temporary site maintenance. Please check back shortly. Sorry for the inconvenience.

I thing orkut site is now under maintence. Nowadays everybody is busy by doing orkut scrapes. we can say people especially freshers who completed the graduation are getting orkut fever.

Now I can say onething atleast few hours orkut may sleep sometime. and these people also get some busy with their work istead of doing scrap things.

Actual reason for this is

Orkut was down for maintenance: Orkut development team has taken orkut.com offline as we implement some improvements and upgrades suggested by users. Since orkut is in the very early stages of development, it's likely to be up and down quite a bit during the coming months. ...

Some introduction to orkut for beginers who wants to get this fever

orkut is an online community that connects people through a network of trusted friends. We are committed to providing an online meeting place where people can socialize, make new acquaintances and find others who share their interests. Join orkut to expand the circumference of your social circle.

Ignore All Facebook Apps Requests in One Click

One of the major complaints about Facebook is the Application Request Queue that keeps getting longer and longer unless your religiously hit the "Ignore" button each time there’s a request from a friend to add a new Facebook application.

At the time of writing, there were some 570 invitations in my Facebook Inbox for various Facebook Applications and clearing this queue would have taken days as I would press the Ignore button exactly 570 times.

Fortunately, there’s a very elegant solution available now in the form of a bookmarklet for IE and Firefox that will completely erase all Facebook application requests in one click.

Go to www.ignoreall.com, bookmark the bookmarklet and click on it on your Facebook request page. It works like magic.

This simple Javascript removes only the Facebook Apps requests - if you have any pending friend requests or group invitations, they’ll stay unaffected.

Know When Facebook Friends Secretly Delete You As a Contact

“X and Y are now friends on Facebook” - That’s the message displayed in your Facebook profile each time you add a new friend on Facebook or someone else confirms your pending request.

But the reverse is not true - you will never know when existing friends remove you from their Facebook friends list. The count of your friends will decrease but Facebook won’t reveal the name of the person who just unfriended you.

You can however play detective using a Facebook app called Unfriender - this will let you know when friends quietly remove as a connection on Facebook. They are extending the alerts to email and SMS as well.

The only downside is that Unfriender works only with friends that you have added after installing the Facebook application. Thanks Josh.

Facebook Blocked At School or Office.....? Access Facebook Via Email

Some businesses (particularly in UK) have blocked access to Facebook during office hours as IT managers feel that surfing social networking sites at work could make employees less productive.

If you also happen to work in such a company where the office firewall has restricted access to Facebook, there’s a workaround - your email.

A new service called MoDazzle makes it possible to use Facebook (and LinkedIn) through email commands.

For instance, you can send an email to fbreadwall@modazzle.com with the subject SELF to read messages posted on your Facebook wall - alter the subject like JOHN to read John’s Facebook wall.

You can do most Facebook actions via email including poke, status updates, writing on a friend’s wall, read messages lying unread in your Facebook Inbox and so on.

Modazzle.com - also supports LinkedIn and Google Maps.

The service could also pick up in schools and countries like Syria and UAE that have banned Facebook on religious grounds.

Social Web Site Facebook Adds Friends List For You To Organize Friends in Groups

The much awaited “friend grouping” feature is now live on Facebook (click the Friends tab on your Facebook profile).

With the new Facebook Friends list, you can now easily organize your Facebook friends into “logical groups” (like blog readers, friends, relatives, college buddies, etc).

You can send private messages to all friends in a list or invite the list to Facebook groups and events more efficiently.

Am sure this feature will reduce “invite spam” on Facebook. You can have up to 100 Friend Lists and up to 1,500 friends per Friend List. You can have the same friend on multiple lists as well.

Get a Printable Phone List of All Your Facebook Friends

Like the Facebook Friends Collage trick, this one is about creating a personal phone directory of all your Facebook Friends that is ready for printing.

Assuming that you are logged into Facebook, visit this page and you’ll get a neatly arranged list of telephone numbers of all your Facebook friend along with their names and profile pictures.

Take a print and you’ll always have those phone numbers ready whenever you need them.

Some Orkut Members Do Not Like Dogs, PETA Doesn’t Like This

Orkut has close to a thousand communities that are about “dogs” - 99% of these “dog” communities are about loving the animal but there’s one that says “I hate dogs”. (see screen-shot)

This has enraged animal rights group PETA and they have now asked Google to delete such content from Orkut and ban the community.

That’s not all - they have also called the Indian police to take action against Orkut members who are part of the “anti-dog” group and have admitted (in Orkut forums) to acts of violence against dogs.

New YouTube Player To Stream Better Quality Videos

The one big reason why I prefer Blip.tv over YouTube is that the former preserves the quality of the original video. On the other hand, YouTube automatically resizes the video clips (to 320×240) and also reduces the quality during the encoding process.

But here’s some interesting news for content producers as well as YouTube viewers - when a video is upload onto YouTube servers, it is encoded into low-res Flash video but at the same time, YouTube also stores the original video clip in its native resolution.

YouTube is now testing a new video player that detects your internet connection speed and stream higher quality video if your prefer so. According to Webware, high-quality YouTube video clips will be available to everyone within three months.

Considering that all popular TV show episodes, movie trailers and music videos are already present on YouTube, this move from Google could bring delight to millions who have replaced their TV sets with the YouTube player.