Times of India, India
Aug 25 2007
A site for sore eyes
TNN[ SATURDAY, AUGUST 25, 2007 03:15:11 PM]
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NEW DELHI: When they are not facing the camera, a bunch of Bollywood
men and women including Aamir Khan and Priyanka Chopra stuff their
stockings, write sticky notes, bitch-slap and throw food on their
friends on a popular social networking website called Facebook.
Primarily focused on high school to college students, the social
network on the Web has now caught the imagination of our reasonably
computer literate filmy janta.
For starters, Facebook was founded by former Harvard student Mark
Zuckerberg as part of his hobby projects. Later, when it was well
received by fellow students, the website was formally launched in
February 2004. The core service is free and has now users across all
English-speaking countries.
Most of our actors have graduated from the humble social network
Orkut to Facebook. While on Orkut most of them complained about lack
of privacy, as all Orkut users have access to profiles and scrapbooks
of their fellow users.
As a result they faced a deluge of scraps from fans and sceptics
alike. Says Gul Panag, `When I was on Orkut a friend recommended
Facebook as it is a relatively private site where only listed friends
can access your profile details.’ However, Gul is yet to upload
pictures on her website, as she is not yet acquainted with the
functions, `I’m not too familiar with the website and there are just
too many application tools.’
However, filmmaker Kunal Kohli feels that Facebook is one of the most
user-friendly websites. Kohli was intrigued when assistant directors
at his office kept raving and ranting about the website every
morning.
Kohli, who is just a month old on Facebook says, `All my assistant
directors were on it. I was too curious and wanted to open an
account. I got up and about on the website in no time. My usage level
is approaching the addiction stage.’
For people like Kohli, Facebook is almost a personal website as users
post their articles, pictures , videos, reading list, movie guide and
music album on the website. Kohli says, `Ever since I have logged on
to Facebook people have stopped sending emails. They prefer posting
messages on my wall. For me it is as good as my personal website.’
Nevertheless, one can’t ignore the networking side to it. Long lost
friends and acquaintances have surfaced for many users. Gul Panag,
who had given up hopes on finding her high school best friend, says,
`The other day, I found my long lost high school, Brit friend. We
went to the International School of Lusaka in Zambia.’
Homi Adajania (of Being Cyrus fame), however, argues that it’s more
of a time-killing exercise (of course, if you have too much to
spare). He says, `It’s pure time pass. I check it whenever I’m
bored.’ He further adds, `But I have found a lot of old Armenian
rugby players who I haven’t met for over 15 years on the website.’