Tag: facebook

Facebook’s Live Video

The only thing that excites me about Mark Zuckerberg’s live video is the anticipation that Facebook’s live video steaming feature would soon be available to all of us (Tech Crunch says that it is available now, but only to celebrities).

And to those who go gaga about the open floor plan that Zuckerberg is boasting about, with his big talk about collaboration and innovation, (apparently Rakuten CEO also boasts the same just about the same day, about his new HQ called Crimson House in Tokyo), you just need to google ‘open office spaces’ and read an article that appears on Fortune by a clinical psychologist. As for me, even an image of it just freaks me out.

That Zuckerberg has his own desk among the rest doesn’t make me go ‘wow’. He is the boss, and it doesn’t really matter if he works from a walled office or on the hallway when everything is to his/company’s advantage.

So please, spare the rest of us your fanfare.

Social media revolution?

You know, at times I feel that we are taking ourselves too seriously. By us, I am referring to the blogosphere, twitterati, facebook and such social media platforms. I do agree about the good things that social media can do in our times, but I think sometimes we stretch this pride too far. One recent example is the change in the ruling system of Egypt.

Many people attribute the victory of Egyptian struggle to social media. But I don’t really get it. Were those people who marched towards Cairo actively participating in social media? How many of the Egyptians who live in Egypt have an internet connection or a smart phone? What help did social media do that the traditional wall posters or leaflets couldn’t do in this struggle?

Revolution can only happen when people actively participate in it. On the road. Many of the people whom I have seen participating in such struggles or agitations locally have come from the offline socio-cultural groups. Most of them seldom use Internet. Just clicking on a ‘Like’ button in a Facebook page or RT-ing a tweet would only make it armchair solidarity and nothing else. It would be interesting to take the statistics of how many of this “I Support!” guys have actually went on street for any such issues. Just ask these social media evangelists to participate in a local meeting to protest the arrest of Binayak Sen, for example. The first question from them would be, “you think I have nothing else to do with my life?” or a comment like “our people are too much politicized and there is too much unemployment that people go to these stupid meetings“.The same lot would be eager to register their protest on other issues by clicking a Like button in Facebook or by changing their Twitter profile pic.

I recall this funny quote I read in a friend’s FB page – “I don’t understand how Tunisians got their freedom without me filing an e-petition or changing my Twitter profile pic!“. That’s how we have become a socially concerned social media generation.

Also read – The myth of Egypt’s butterfly revolution