WILL FACEBOOK EVER DIE?

Second life would have asked itself when it was peaking in 2007, will Second Life ever die? For kids who don’t what it is. Like most Kamal Hasan movies Second Life was ahead of its times. It’s a 3-D virtual world community. This was a rage way back in 2006 and look where they are today. I guess most of you wouldn’t even know if something like that ever existed. Same could happen to Facebook by 2015 but why? I’m not a dot com expert, just an ordinary internet user with little interest in the world of marketing ( courtesy my profession ). Here is my interpretation on why facebook will eventually die.

The world on internet runs purely on “attention” grabbing and “coolness” factor. Trust me very few of us go by technology or features. I remember the days when people proudly flaunted their hotmail id’s ( What hotmail and cool? well, it was a decade ago ) and suddenly everyone moved to yahoo. Do you think it was because yahoo was any superior to hotmail in terms of technology? yes? think again friend.

If I bring down the argument to India. Remember Orkut ( Ahhhh, Oh that site, I found many of my long lost friends there ) how many times in a day do you visit that now? chances are it is ZERO. wasn’t it a great portal 2 years ago? now what? If you look carefully feature wise almost all social media portals – Orkut, Hi5, friendster, myspace, facebook are almost similar but as of now facebook has slayed everyone, it has over 500million users.Facebook is doing well not because they are any unique. It is simply because they got our ‘attention’ it’s what I simply c
What happens when hysteria dies down? what happens when some “new” Zuckerberg gives us a fancy new platform? What happens when you simply get bored of Facebooking? you’re right, your guess is as good as mine. You would move on. I know engineers at facebook at working really hard to provide us new experiences and apps but you see the internet world is crazy beyond a point no one really cares. Facebook will die not because they won’t innovate or add new features, it would simply because you and me would loose “interest” in facebooking. Might sound outrageous but it is true. Look at hotmail, look at yahoo, look at orkut, look at napster they all met the same fate. My verdict is very clear & simple –Facebook will die and it is you and me my friend who would bring an end to this empire.

The greatest enemy of a woman is another woman!

                             There is a saying  - "A woman's enemy is another woman". So very true...I was watching the usual talk show Neeya Naana the other day. The debate was between feminists and women against feminism. It was a pretty hot debate with women on both sides screaming. Surprisingly more noise came from the non-suffragist side. They portrayed the part of the society which I hate the most. Before I proceed, I have to make it clear that I am a big time feminist and a proponent of men-women equality. I also want to put a little disclaimer here - Most of what I am writing in this blog post would perfectly fit Indian society, culture,women and might/ might not be suitable with respect to women of other countries, cultures etc mostly because of my limited knowledge of the lives and statuses of women in other countries. So getting back to where I was. The women against feminism reminded me of most women in our society who in my opinion are the biggest enemies of other women. These women are advocates of family and children are more important than self for a woman. Women should cater to the needs of husbands and family and should make that their priority. According them women should almost have no dreams and aspirations except those which do not come as a hindrance to their family or husband or even parents' wishes in some cases and that they should go ahead to fulfill these dreams when their families or husbands allow them to. In their opinion, sacrifice, adjustment, compromise are trademarks of women and define who women are. These women themselves have been brought up by their parents constantly telling them that they are girls and that they should be ready to make sacrifices and should consider everything but themselves more important than themselves and that men are gods on earth etc. And these women carry the legacy forward by passing them forward to their daughters. The kind I am mentioning here includes not only downtrodden and uneducated women but also women from some well-off and educated families. In the eyes of these women, feminism is a disgrace to women community. They fail to understand that it is because of feminists that their conditions in society have improved atleast a little. It is very easy to portray feminist women as the kind who just give up their families and bring disgrace to their families instead and that these women way more than ultra modern women who could give up anything even their own dignity to do anything. Even as I write this, I am made with rage. Feminists only advocate something which is going to bring equality to all. But the non-feminist women ruin not just their own lives, but the lives of other women as well. A 'good woman' in our society is one who can is the epitome of self sacrifice, who doesn't do anything against the wish of her family, who agrees and even advocates that men are superior and better, who talks, acts, dresses up in a manner approved by the society, family etc. Non- feminists make sure they fall into the category of 'good woman' and are more concerned about how society looks at them. While feminists care more about what they feel is right and fair enough, this does not mean that they bring a disgrace to everyone or that they are incapable of care and affection towards family and friends or that their intentions are only to insult the society. Feminists prefer to be themselves as opposed to being something other want them to be. Anyways, the whole point about women being enemies of women is close to indisputable. Non - feminist women who keep advocating directly or indirectly that men are better are enemies of women, mother-in-laws who think their daughter in laws are witches who snatch away their sons from them are enemies of women, women who because of jealousy or any other reason talk as badly as possible about other women are enemies of women, women who keep emotionally instilling a sort of guilt in other women of being not- good when they do not completely follow society's so called norms are enemies of women. As much as many men try to suppress women, in my opinion, more than that, it is some women who suppress other women. Why should a woman be another woman's enemy, aren't they supposed to support each other? Aren't they supposed to stand united for the equality of men and women?

HISTORY OF FACEBOOK

           It all began in February 2004 when a young Harvard Psychology student, by the name of Mark Zuckerberg, decided to create a way for other Harvard students to get to know each other and keep in touch over the internet.

He called it TheFacebook.com obtaining the idea from the Harvard printed publication of students’ profiles and photos given to students at the beginning of each academic year. Access to the website was firstly restricted to Harvard students and then, given its increasing popularity, it was extended soon after to other colleges like Yale, Stanford and Columbia.

Facebook Becomes Popular

After few months Zuckerberg, together with Dustin Moskowitz and Chris Hughes, two of his Harvard friends who helped him to build Facebook, dropped out of Harvard and moved to Palo Alto, California to run the website as their sole occupation. In June 2004, after a coincidental meeting with the former co-creator of Napster, Sean Parker, Facebook received its first investment of US$500K from the co-founder of Pay-Pal, Peter Thiel.

In 2005 Facebook granted access to members belonging to recognized academic institutions and other organisations in USA, Canada and other English-speaking countries as long as they could provide a valid email I.D. associated with their institutions. In the same year the "The" was dropped and the domain Facebook.com was purchased for US$200K. Two equity and venture capital firms Accel Partners and Greylock Partners invested respectively US$ 12.7mil and US$27.5mil.

According to an internal survey completed in September 2005 more than 85% of students of the enlisted universities had a Facebook account and at least 50% of them were accessing the website daily. In the following months there were few attempts to purchase Facebook - in September 2006 Mark Zuckerberg refused an offer from the internet giant Yahoo with prices close to the US$1 billion dollar mark.

Facebook Goes Global

Determined not to sell Facebook in order to maintain its independence, Zuckerberg launched his ever popular social network on a global scale granting the access to basically everyone who owned a simple valid e-mail address. At this stage Facebook faced strong competition from another social network site called MySpace bought by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. in 2005 for US$580mil.

Exactly a year later Facebook Inc. was approached by Microsoft which, subsequently, acquired a 1.6% shares of the company for the staggering sum of US$240mil boosting the implied total value of the social network to US15 Billion. A month later an Hong Kong billionaire invested in Facebook US$60mil.

Despite the large sums invested in the company Facebook declared to have turned cash flow positive only towards the end of 2009. Facebook's headquarters can be found in Palo Alto California, Dublin, Ireland and Seoul, South Korea with rumors of a new one soon to be built in Hyderabad, India.

Facebook: The Website and its Features

The main aim of Facebook is to allow its users to freely create profiles, upload photos, list interests, contacts and other personal information which can be shared consequently with a number of friends. Members can communicate with each other in different ways using tools such as private or public messaging or a chat.

Facebook offers a number of privacy settings which can be enabled or disabled according to users’ desire of limiting the exposure of their profile to others. Other features include a “Wall” a virtual space where friends can post messages, upload videos and photos for everyone to see, a “Status” whereby users can let others know of their thoughts and whereabouts and a “Photo Album” where an unlimited amount of photos can be uploaded daily.

Users can also play games, send virtual gifts and post classified ads. In 2006 a News Feed was added on users' homepage informing them, in real time, of profile changes and events such as birthdays of the users' friends.

Mark Zuckerberg himself owns a facebook page and in his list of interests, in his personal info he writes - “I make things that increase information flow between people.”

MY SCHOOL LIFE

My name is vbek and  I studied at new horizon institiue. I would like to tell you a few words about my school life............................................... my 10 (A) friends I go to school six days a week except Saturday  when I have deserved rest. Classes in our school start at 10 o'clock in the morning and last till 4. Usually we have 7 or 8 lessons a day. We study a lot of different subjects: english,science,social , Math,computer ,optional math etc. I like math ,optional math and computer most of all. I usually receive good marks in these subjects. My teachers and parents think that I feel an inclination to these subjects.   A school year is divided into four terms. It begins on the 1st of September known as the Day of knowledge and finishes in May. Each term is followed by holidays that last one week in autumn and spring and two weeks in winter. . Our classroom is on the fourth floor. Its windows face the school-yard. There are two large windows in our classroom; a great amount of flowers grow in pots that stand on the window-sills. It is pupils of our class who are responsible to water the flowers several times a week. And we all do it with great care and pleasure. On the walls of our classroom there are different colour maps and portraits, tables and wall newspapers.   Our form is the only one among 10th forms of our school who has a class-master, but not a class-mistress. He is a kind, knowledgeable and very fair teacher who doesn't spare time to take us to different places of interest and exhibitions. He teaches us History of our country and we like and respected him a lot. Every pupil has a record book where our teachers write down our marks and we write down home tasks. Lessons usually take place in such a way that a teacher asks a question and the pupils who can give an answer raise their hands and the teacher calls out one of them to answer the question. Teachers often call pupils to the blackboard to do different exercises or to write some sentences from dictation. When they make a mistake, other pupil can be called out to correct a mistake or sometimes the teacher corrects it himself. After every lesson teachers give us home tasks both written and oral forms. I like going to school because here I have many friends and wise teachers who can always give a piece of advice. And I like studying as well, it brings me a lot of pleasure and I like to learn new facts about the world.