When I asked my American friend Amy Ampuja who was on a world tour on how she finds Poland different from India, this is what she wrote to me, “The air is a lot cleaner so I can breathe freely and not feel the effects of Indian cities. Been thinking more, people can be more independent in the West because things run smoothly and efficiently, you don’t really need people to help you. Whereas in India, everyone helps each other, or there is someone doing something for someone. The way to survive is very different in each place. I am not saying that one is better than the other, they are what they are. Everyone here is just into doing their own thing, on a path, in their own world. In India, everyone is integrated and thinks about each other and is dependent. Two different worlds and I can appreciate how to adjust and notice how my behavior and thoughts change with the environment.”
Since then I have been thinking. Are the ends same but means different? Well it is true for life but is it true for our Social Networks? If that is true than one platform should not fit all shoes. I had heard of Facebook when I was in India but never ever thought of creating my own account. However as soon as I came to USA, I was introduced to Facebook right at my orientation where I was told to join the OISS group in Facebook. Like before I turned a deaf ear to it till the time my course work needed me to create a Facebook account.
One more Social Network
I had ignored requests from friends to join Facebook. Why one more Social Network(SN)? Now that I don’t have any invitation I had to go to the homepage and sign up. I hate long registration forms. However, l was saved this time and just needed to put in my email address. Once my registration process is complete it fetches all the contacts from my email list and sends them an invitation to connect to my network. So how does this make a difference? My friends from other networking site namely Orkut are replicated in Facebook. Why do I need to replicate them? Is it another way of saving your contact address as a backup? Once someone has seen my photos, he will have to tolerate my photos on his other wall as well? Well, the whole approach that I can look into cultures by joining the SN from their country seems to be misplaced. It seems that my SN is same, only the servers are located at different countries. Does that let me figure out cultural differences? Well we will explore and figure out. At the beginning it was frustrating. There was so much of confusion. I would add contacts that are already in my other list. This was not novel. Nothing new happened for some time, only the repetition of activities in 2 of my networks I followed. But soon I realized that my Facebook had all the friends and contacts I made in the US. There is a huge bunch of Indians and internationals whom I befriended during orientation and my stay of a semester in the US. A pattern different from the other network soon began to evolve. The ABDs (American born Desis ) would upload a lot more photographs and their status updates changed at regular intervals. Soon I got to know what all was happening in the campus. I also added some of my American friends from the courses I was attending. I also happened to be spending a lot of time in the Confucius Institute and made some good Chinese friends there. Soon I was on their Facebook and now it seems that my SN had variety.
Getting to know a new system
Was it only me who had a preference for Orkut? So I did a little study and figured out that most of the social network startup in India are losing out to Orkut. While reasons could vary from one startup to the other, it is really important to understand why Indians use social networks. As per Nielsen’s research,
- 82 % want to keep in touch with people they know
- 58 % join a social networking site to reconnect with old acquaintances they have lost touch with
- 53 % sign up to make friends
- 43 % cite professional networking as a reason
The 53% who want to make friends are part of dating gang members, but the rest of the stat is important to understand. What is it that Indians do not use a social network for? The answer is “Hanging out”. Unlike the US youngsters who spend a good amount of time on Facebook, Myspace, hanging around and “expressing themselves”, Indians aren’t the usual hangout kind, and instead use SN for a defined purpose. Now, this obviously goes against several SN startups mantra (who want Indians to express themselves by uploading cool pics/videos and more) and a clear reason why few of them have folded (like jhoom.in) and others are almost on the verge of failing.
Indians prefer Orkut to Facebook
ComScore Inc., a leader in measuring the digital world, released a report on the top social networking sites in India, finding that visit to the site category increased 51% from the previous year to more than 19 million visitors in December 2008. The study also found that global social networking brands continued to gain prominence in India during the year, with Orkut, Facebook, hi5, LinkedIn and MySpace each witnessing significant increases in visitation.
Orkut tops list of social networking sites in India. Orkut reigned as the most visited social networking site in December 2008 with more than 12.8 million visitors, an increase of 81% from the previous year. Orkut’s audience was three times the size of its nearest competitor in the category. Facebook.com captured the 2nd position with 4 million visitors, up 150% versus year ago, followed by local social networking site Bharatstudent.com with 3.3 million visitors (up 88%) and hi5.com with 2 million visitors (up 182%).
Exploring Cultural Influences on Self Expression
Ever wondered why few networks are a super success while others (packed with better features) struggle to even catch an eye? Joshua of Social Design shares his interesting insights on human behavior. He says most of these behavioral aspects can be applied to building a great community. Because life in not deterministic, we cannot always predict human behavior. Take a look at successful social networks like Orkut and Facebook – at their core lies the basic social structure that empowers people to connect to each other and share their life. But there is still a difference in the way it is used. Culture plays a very important role in the way we socialize.
India has a hierarchical society. I have never questioned my elders or teachers. Even when I know a thing is wrong I never protest. I simply let the matter die. It is ok to express but it is derogatory to shout. Being humble is a virtue and being a rebel is a vice. Simple living and high thinking is what the society wants. Showing off wealth or power is not really appreciated. We have been a closed economy for long because of some of these factors. And though we don’t want all these factors to affect our sociability it plays a part in most of the decision making. Also, the earlier Facebook controversy of news feeds and mini feeds reinforces the fact that humans are not at all rational (and group behavior is very different from individual behavior).
Why I prefer Orkut ?
Google owns Orkut. Is the brand selling it? Well I joined Orkut when Google did not own it. I will go where my friends are and most of my friends are software developers and I trust their word. That is how I joined it. Twice as many software developers in India use Orkut as MySpace or Facebook. It is very important as these developers mainly represent the growing middle class and their recommendation is a very big factor in joining SN in India. Orkut has become so popular with developers in both India and Brazil that they have recently released new domains specific to these countries.
My transition from Orkut to Facebook
There are lots of Social Networks in India. While most of these sites believe in CAP model (i.e. Copy And Paste) from the West, especially Orkut and Faxcebook, none of them has been as popular as Orkut. Even before Google bought it, Orkut was popular in India. Of the little that I know of Social Networks, here is what I think makes Orkut so popular.
Ease of use:
Orkut UI is probably the simplest UI I have ever seen. In fact the UI conforms to the basic mantra of usability, i.e. don’t make me think, at the same time a look at Facebook will leave you a little confused and you need to figure out the feature that you were looking for (too many features). Facebook wants me to blog, share pictures, write on the wall, socialize, add friends, add events and of course win iPods. It is too overwhelming for me. I like simplicity as compared to clutter. Traditionally plane simple interface of Google homepage is more appealing to me than yahoo’s homepage. This need for simplicity or white space became more obvious as time passed by. It might be a factor that I am too used to Orkut and thus it is difficult for me to adapt to Facebook. But as I was trying my level best to figure out Facebook, it came out with a new design change. I hate changes. I think I am growing old and thus getting used to new things becomes difficult. Feeds from 300 friends populate my wall faster than Reuters. I would really not like to have updates from all my friends. I would like to prioritize my friends and seek information about a few. I tried tweaking its privacy settings but it is not of much use. I thought that friends you request are almost the same as getting an invitation to add a friend. This news feed thing made me realize that friends that you seek are closer to you than the ones that others seek. Now I have realized that I value friends I have sought more than the friend requests I have accepted.
Orkut substitutes Writing Emails:
What was missing in the online world? There was email and groups. There was text messaging on the mobile phone. But why do I use Orkut so extensively? I, like many other users, use the scraps feature, the most (in fact that’s the only feature I use). And why do I scrap? Because it substitutes writing an email. Is writing an email so tough? Well if you are lazy like me you would know the answer. But being lazy is not always the case. Most of the time you don’t have much to talk about. Writing an email for that seems inappropriate. What have u had for lunch seems appropriate for a scrap but not for an email. I would write emails when I have substantial things to talk about. There is a whole bunch of communications that comes between formal and informal communications and scraps take care of all. Breaking the ice is so much easier and is just a scrap away. Just because most of the SN don’t differentiate between friend and just an acquaintance, its one size fits all solutions. The bottom line is that the Orkut scrap breaks the communication barrier/ hiccups associated with sending emails to not-so-close-friends (and get away with answering questions like “how should I start this email/conversation?”). Yes I realized that if cost of entering or leaving a platform is insignificant, it becomes acceptable. But the communication is personal and private to a degree. It is a communication between two persons which if others are willing and the owner allows, can see. To a third person it opens up a small window of what is going on in his/her life.
On the other hand Facebook has a wall. It feels like I am doing graffiti on a wall, which I consider as expression, or rebelling. Yes I want to express but to a certain person and not to the whole world. There is a difference in communicating to a group and to an individual. The need for this difference has been completely ignored and a community communication has taken a predominance only for profit motives. I am sure it provides more information for others to catch up, but I really don’t need it. This is a reason why I never write on a wall. I am a passive onlooker on Facebook. I am an introvert and would like to remain so. I learnt that the design of the system greatly influences my actions. On the one hand the affordability of the system helps me reach out to friends and on the other hand, too much of self-expression capability pushes me to my shell. I think I need something in between these options.
Gossips:
Gossips are something that we all love. I would like to catch up on the latest movies and gossip with friends who share the same passion. Orkut is a place, which allows you to quench your thirst. I have explored my friend’s scrapbooks to see who’s writing what. Haven’t you explored your friend’s friends list? Orkut provides a great platform to get a glimpse of a friend’s life. And that’s why it’s so sticky (one keeps checking who visited their profile, what’s happening with their friends/crushes etc.) you can bitch about a friend that he or she cannot know about until and unless s/he takes an effort to check the scrapbook of the concerned friend. So the whole class can be a part of a mischief, still the concerned party can be unaware of what is going on. These little things spice up your online presence. On the other hand in Facebook it is either public or private. There are no shades of grey in between black and white. India being such a diverse country filled with all sorts of people cannot simply do without these shades. At least I can’t do without them. I realized that I am not like the Italian designer who is content with his black and white designs. I love colors, sometimes bright reds and at other times shooting blue. I want a rainbow and not an overcast sky. So I am still waiting for Facebook to provide me with the rainbow, till then I will play with Orkut.
Blocked Access:
Many IT companies in India have blocked the access to internet email sites/Yahoo/GMail/ Hotmail etc. and that’s one of the reasons why Orkut is heavily used. Most of the SN sites are also blocked. But the Google search engine cannot be blocked, as it is very useful in searching codes and stuff that is required for work. This window does not allow for effective closure of Google services as there are loop holes that can be explored. In fact this is one of the most important reasons for Orkut to be so popular in India as it is a Google product. Again as explained earlier, if you want to send an email to your friend, the only available alternative is to scrap your friends. Facebook is unfortunate to be blocked. So am I talking about culture? Well though this has nothing to do with culture per say but it surely has to do with work culture. I realized that it is not just choice that determines a market. Sometimes just availability can be a force that addicts you and you keep using it. I have become addicted with this phenomenon and I will take time to become loyal to another brand.
Who visited my site?:
Difference between you approaching someone and vice versa, Orkut has a feature, which lists the recent visitors to your profile. This generates a viral effect for your site. Though you might not be interested in dating, but the fact that the other person has visited your site gives you an indication that s/he is interested in you for what ever may be the reason. This is a kind of an icebreaker and gives you something to talk about. This has the seed of social networking; you reach out to strangers and get to know them. The platform is a great tool for introverts to practice a little bit of socialising. Facebook on the other hand does not allow you to visit profiles that are not on your list. You can see your friend’s friends but the profile information is not visible. Neither does it have an icebreaker. I think it is meant for extroverts only. My usage of Facebook proved to me that I am an introvert and find it easier to mingle with fewer people who first show interest in me . I have been unsuccessful in being outwardly and have hardly requested friends throughout the time. I have only accepted friend requests. Facebook does a remarkable job of showing you people you might know. But it is not a good reason for me to add them to my list. I need to know if they are interested in knowing me better but there is no clue in this direction.
Scraps as assets:
As a child I used to collect WWE cards. Nowadays children collect Pokemon cards. They exchange these cards for benefits and flaunt them in front of their friends. The more the cards the more popular you are with your friends. Something similar to stamp collecting. Girls in the dorms make arrangements to receive calls as a proof of their popularity. Similar things happen with Scraps too. These are assets. It shows how popular you are with friends. People like to flaunt them and is far more cost effective than making calls. I don’t delete my scraps. Sometimes my friends would come and write “Here goes your 3000th Scrap”. The whole activity is like contributing to popularity. If Orkut were economics, Scraps would have become money. It is amazing how human mind attaches importance to things and makes it valuable. Philanthropy is so much easy with stuff that is free. Yet in the real world we stock pile natural resources and create a scarcity so that there is a market for our goods. Can Social Networking teach us something in this direction?
Profile Information:
Orkut by default allows all the profile information to a person visible to general public. Of late it has been influenced by Facebook and implemented stricter privacy settings. However there is a major difference in the way profile information is laid out to the public. When I visit a profile page on Orkut, I get to see a profile picture of the person along with his personal, professional and social information that he has filled. This gives me some sort of an idea if I would like to be friends with the person or not. While going through the personal information, you may find common connections and send him/her a friend request. This is good for the platform and also for the users. On the other hand, Facebook allows me to see only a tiny thumbnail image of a person with his/her name and mutual connection. This is too less of an information to extend friendship. There may be more than one Saikat Mandal and he might be using an avatar as a profile picture. This gives me very less clue, if I want to find out if he is my long lost high school friend. My surveys with friends revealed that Indians want to get complete information prior to becoming friends. On the other hand, my survey involving Chinese students revealed that it was normal for them to befriend someone and then if s/he is not the concerned person, you can delete him/her. This behavior of deleting is not taken in good spirit in India.
Profile Information, Trust in the Social Networks:
It is very important to establish a kind of trust before you can start with some sort o business in SN. I need to know the person before I can add him or her to my list. Facebook scores very low in this case for me. It allows me very less information to decide if I want to add him/her to my list. I can at the max. see other friends who are in his list but that is not good a reason to add someone to my list. However if someone sends me a request, I can see a little more information than the previous case. I am able to see his friends and a little bit of information that he might want to share with me like email id and groups sometimes. As explained earlier, the information is inadequate for me to decide. Yes most of the time I get invitations from known people and it is not difficult to identify them. But then the media is not playing any significant role here. Whereas on Orkut , I can see the profile information that the user has filled up. I get an idea of the person, I get to see his circle of friends, I get to know about his personal, professional and social life. Even the physical characteristics like hair color and eye color is visible. I get to see the schools and colleges he has attended. At the same time I can confirm whether the information he has filled in is true or not. I first go and check if he has friends in the list from the institutes he has attended. Pretty simple tests to figure out the truth or lets put it like a litmus test. Again most of the time he or she will join the communities of the institutes. Once all information is verified, I would then reflect on the character traits of the person and if I like it I will accept the friendship request. On the other hand, Facebook allows too less of information to make a proper judgment. Well one may argue that you can add and then if you don’t like the person then you can delete the person. There are two aspects to this; one being that once I add someone to my profile, s/he gains access to my friend’s profiles. I am not just putting myself to risk but also my friends. Secondly, there is a difference in the degree of insult. One insult is that you don’t allow your guest to enter your house. Second insult is, you allow the guest to enter the house and then throw him out of the house. In my culture guest is a God. Such treatment to a guest is totally unacceptable. I know I am taking the matter to a different level but these cues work at the back of the mind for people being brought up in such atmospheres. Though on the top it seems like a small difference in the feature but in a cultural context it is a huge issue. My learning from this is that features needs to be rooted in the culture and should not be simply left at the whims of technology experts.
Gender differences in profile pictures:
Most Indian males on Orkut have profile pictures. Some of them have avatars but the use of an avatar is not that extensive. Avatars generally have religious connotations in Hindu culture and thus people avoid it to be on the safer side. People put their own pictures and try to depict themselves in a true spirit. On the contrary Chinese males (as the survey depicts) use a lot of Manga characters as avatars. These differences are rooted in the culture. Manga comics is popular in Japan, China and Korea. A careful study of the comics reveal that the characters have large expressive eyes. This population that has relatively less expressive eyes try to make up for this deficit and thus this popularity. They rarely use their real names. Indian women on Orkut hardly have their own pictures to begin with. They will start with an avatar or an abstract picture when they begin using it. This is because they fear misuse of their pictures online. Gradually as their confidence grows, they will start putting real pictures of themselves. But this phase of putting a real picture may take a time span of 1-3 years and one unforeseen event would send them to hiding again. They also use cartoons or faces of children to represent themselves. Another popular culture is to display pictures of Bollywood heroines, which they identify with. They also use group photographs where they cannot be identified easily. The purdah system that was and is practiced in many parts of India has carried itself to the SN as well.
On the other hand more girls are switching to facebook because of its security features. Girls feel more protected against unruly behaviors on facebook as compared to Orkut. A large female base is switching to facebook and thus in turn bringing in more boys, naturally. If a market research firm was to do a research, it would say that cultural differences create a niche and sometimes huge markets. But SN sites, to be successful, should truly let people express by considering all these factors. Cultural differences should be taken into considered if anything has to be popular in Asia.
Serendipity Moments:
I had numerous serendipity moments with Orkut. I was able to connect to many of my classmates whom I had lost track of. I had no idea of their whereabouts, but thanks to Orkut, I am now well connected with these folks. And these serendipitous moments take Orkut to the next level in user satisfaction. A great product, apart from fulfilling the basic needs should also throws up “Aha” moments. And that’s what I feel when I see a scrap/add request from my school friends. Facebook on the other hand will search its database and throw relative matches of friends. Not always these matches are correct. I would like to search for friends myself rather than be at the mercy of the software to give a desired matche. It is not that I cannot find friends on Facebook, but it is far more tedious than finding someone on Orkut.
Communities:
As Amy explained and I realized that Indians like to live as a group. Individual identities are either not there or very subdued. Orkut is a great place to create communities and interact. The importance is cleverly depicted right in the top header. Everything that a community needs has been integrated into it. It has different topics and polls that the members can contribute to. Huge number of teenagers and school students use this platform to express themselves. One similar act happened in a school called Bombay Scottish in Mumbai. This is one of the most influential schools of the city whose pupils are sons and daughters of politicians, film stars and business tycoons. I am really intrigued at how media changes behaviors. Give a person a gun and he will shoot. That is what happened with SN at Bombay Scottish. With the availability of this platform, people who were so not used to expressing themselves began so in a never before imagined way. The school students from 8th grade started slandering the name of the principal and put up pictures of him. The principal somehow figured out what was going on and complained to the police. Google was urged to remove the community but with no success. India does not have proper cyber security laws. So many students were suspended. Google’s servers are not located in India, which keeps it out of the jurisdiction of Indian laws. This gives rise to a very pressing problem of cyber insecurity. After the Mumbai 26/11 attacks, Indian laws are pushing for servers to be located in India and also Indian mail ids needs to have “.in” added to the email ids. So what do we call this globalization or localization? On the one hand we are talking about a global identity whereas for some or the other cause, there is a need to be identified. Where do we seek a balance?
However due to the whole incident the students of this school were forced to find another platform to express themselves. Thanks to Facebook there was a readymade platform waiting for them. The whole school shifted to this platform. These students being very influential also bring in a viral effect and others schools that see them as role models soon followed them to Facebook. Whatever may be the cause, at least for this incident I have my niece and nephew on Facebook, some family on the network.
Difference between friends and family:
Well the other day I was having a discussion with one of my friends about private entrepreneurship. Lots of business ideas were discussed and somehow we shifted to the topic: When do you know that your product or industry is successful? We came to a conclusion when the word begins to be used as a verb; you know that it is successful. When you say “Google out” something, Facebook me or tweet me, you know that your product is successful. Similarly you will have friends in social network sites, however when there is family on SN, you know that the product is being used as a verb. You stay in touch with family by coming home every night, or ringing up frequently in case of a dispersed family. However if your family is communicating with you within the time from office to home, you know that your social relationship has taken a different dimension. You are never short of words when you are with your own people. So if the internet companies want their stickiness to increase, they should stop trying to get friends chatting on a topic. Instead look into how you can make people interact within a family. Rest of it will automatically fall in place.
Recommendation System:
Everything in India works on recommendation. Google search engine is replaced by word of mouth. Like Google there are thousands of people you can turn to get an advice in case of a need may it be the best place to buy medicine to the best Doctor to consult. Here the results are not dependent on how popular the link/result is in terms of page views. Here what matters is who is the closest to you. Even if the suggestion by your closest friend might not be very credible still you would go ahead with his/her suggestion, as you trust them more than anybody else. Here SN plays a very big role. Facebook in particular scores way higher than Orkut in getting suggestion from people. One Status update asking a question will have 200 of your friends suggesting you on a topic. It is now for you to do an analysis and take the best decision. In this case the best answer matters and not the best friend. Orkut on the other hand is for personal communication and does not have a wall where you can shout. However you can send multiple scraps to all your friends by using applications, but still it is not as effective as putting up an information on a pin up board. The pin up board is missing in Orkut.
What Did I learn: One site fits all doesn’t fit
The Web has absolutely improved the world. With a few minutes effort, you can get almost anything… from almost anywhere. The opportunities are endless. But is it the case with Social Networks? Companies can now attract customers from almost anywhere at any time. With a solid, usable site, the world is their customer base, right? Maybe. Organizations struggle with globalization-localization issues. Can one site fit all? Can parts of the design be standardized? Which parts need to be localized?
In India Orkut and Facebook are doing very good. While companies like Facebook struggle to conquer market share in China and to create viable business models everywhere. However Chinese clones of Facebook have built lucrative cash machines literally earning billions of dollars a year. Unfortunately, adopting Chinese methods have not helped American social networks due to both cultural differences in user behavior and industry practices. So the need of the hour is to learn about the User in a better manner. The designs needs to be human-centered and not just technology driven. It would help to know what the user eats, drinks and sleeps. What are his idiosyncrasies? What are the cultural differences? Especially for sites like Facebook needs do do better ethnographic studies to find out the shuttle differences in the cultures of the markets they are trying to target. Instead of following twitter , Mark Zuckerberg should follow the Culture Trends to do better in these markets.
On the personal front I have realized that I have not changed much. I am still an introvert and have never posted any status message. I have not even posted on anybody’s wall. I am a passive onlooker. I am a kind of a parasite who entertains himself by looking through activities of others. I absorb all information that comes my way and form my own personal impressions, which I share with no one. What a waste of resources. But I have realized that I hate people who very frequently update status messages. I feel that they are shouting for attention. I don’t want to be friends with them and have switched off their feeds. The platform allowed me to get in touch with a lot of friends by giving friend suggestions. A lot of lost school friends got back in touch. I really don’t know if these connections helped me know the opposite person in a better fashion. Or do I want to know him/her better? Is it a liability or burden? Am I sharing my intimate moments with them? No not at all. They are not a source of emotional support, nor do I connect with them much. I am just weaving a mesh of weak connections.
I realized that the differences observed in my study were not always cultural differences but also feature and technology differences. Cultural difference is a very loose word and what I perceive of it, as culture might not be the same for another person from the region. These are loosely connected terms but of course they have an effect on the way we approach our problems.
I realized that I am traveling on two boats at the same time. Technology is allowing me to virtually live or stay in touch with my life in India whereas my daily activities take place in America. Does that make my world a better place to live? No not exactly. I am happy to know that I know about my folks but at the same time the sense of loss is constantly there. “Out of Sight is Out of Mind”. Now that is not possible. I am intrigued by the power that technology brings along. I am like some sort of God sitting up above in the heaven and still can peep into the world of concerned people all across the globe. But the same technology does not allow me to socialize with my neighbor. I am here in a foreign land and foreign culture, which is an opportunity for me to learn the other side of the world. Instead I am spending time being in touch with my part of the world. I am living in my own Ghetto in a globalized world. I am not making any real friends but running after virtual friends and trying to catch up with my past. I really don’t know if Social Networks are adding to my progress but I surely know that it helps me procrastinate.
