Social media primer ; There are various types of online social media - from social networks of friends and professionals, to microblogging services, to video sharing sites. Here's a helpful list.

There are various types of online social media - from socialnetworks of friends and professionals, to microblogging services, tovideo sharing sites. Here's a helpful list.

ONLINE FRIENDS NETWORKS

Orkut

India's most popular social network, this Google-owned servicewas set up by former Google engineer Orkut Buyukkokten in his sparetime. Once a hit with users, it is far behind in the globalpopularity stakes. Orkut has faced some issues because of itspreviously open nature, which included accusations of fostering hateand underage sex. After legal problems in 2007, Orkut substantiallycleaned up the network, but by then, the damage was done - high-endusers had begun switching over to Facebook.

New, clean layout with enhanced user privacy.

But its past reputation will haunt it.

Facebook

It's difficult to imagine that there is someone out there whohasn't heard of Facebook. The world's largest social network, withover 200 million users, began when a small group of Harvardstudents, led by Mark Zuckerberg, decided to keep in touch with eachother. It soon opened out to other US campuses and eventually in2006, to everyone. According to Internet metrics service ComScore,Facebook is the second-most visited social networking site in Indiaas of December 2008, after Orkut.

Users can enable high privacy levels to keep themselves secure.

Recently, users have faced phishing attacks and identity theft.

MySpace

Most popular with musicians and actors, who use the site to hostmusic and movie clips, this site was picked up by Rupert Murdoch'sNewsCorp. a few years ago and its immense popularity made Googlegive it a lucrative advertising deal. However, the site has failedto keep up with Facebook's popularity globally and recently laid off30 per cent of its workforce.

Several bands have been discovered on the network.

Its India-specific service has yet to catch on.

VIDEO SHARING

YouTube

YouTube has started a video revolution it's as simple as that.The service which allows anyone to upload video clips on to the netfrom your baby's first steps to a music video that you recently shotcommands a big chunk of Internet traffic today. According toestimates, every minute of the day, over 10 minutes of content isbeing uploaded on to the service. All smartphones and some flat-panel television manufacturers are bundling YouTube applicationsinto their devices. However, Google executives acknowledge that theyare far from monetising the service.

Copyright owners like music companies are also posting their owncontent.

Still far too much illegally posted copyrighted content abounds.

Other Video Sharing Services: Hulu is a video service promoted byUS TV network NBC and has high-quality online broadcasts of theirshows. However, users from India cannot access Hulu. Other sitesinclude Vimeoand DailyMotion. Several Indian video sharing servicesfailed because of the massive bandwidth costs involved.

ONLINE PROFESSIONAL NETWORKS

LinkedIn

This site is possibly unique among social networks in the sensethat it claims to be profitable through advertising and premiummembership. According to statistics, there are 41 million users onLinkedIn, of which two million are from India (the second-largestuser base after the US). Virtually every large company and executivefeatured in this story has a LinkedIn account and there are examplesgalore of how India Inc. is using LinkedIn to find talent and domore.

Extremely popular among India Inc. and growing by the day.

Layout is slightly clunky compared to other services.

Blogging

Most blogging sites are also social media by definition theyallow anyone and everyone to create a blog. Also, if the bloggerallows it, anyone with net access can post a comment on the blog,which can be moderated. Blogging is the oldest form of read-writeonline social media, but has now reached a stable phase. The mostpopular free blogging services online where anyone can set up a blogare:

Blogger/Blogspot

WordPress

LiveJournal

MICROBLOGGING

Twitter

This is a blazingly fast-growing service: Nielsen Onlineestimated Twitter's growth at a staggering 1,382 per cent a monthwith an estimated 100 million users. Caveat: A Harvard studyestimated that 10 per cent of these users, by and large, created 90per cent of the content. Twitter essentially allows users to sendout their thoughts in 140 characters or less. Only a third ofTwitter users are active, though, and India has an active Twitteratiof an estimated 10,000 people. Several Indian companies are nowembracing the service.

Immensely popular and highly useful during breaking news eventssuch as 26/11.

A lot of tweets are pointless fluff and marketing on Twitter is adouble-edged sword.

OTHER TYPES OF SOCIAL NETWORKS

Social Bookmarking

This is a way for Internet users to share with each other sitesthat they visit making their bookmarks visible to the whole world.Popular services include Digg, Reddit and Del.icio.us.

Photo Sharing

Sites like Flickr (owned by Yahoo!), Picasa (owned by Google) andSnapfish (owned by HP) are popular sites that host pictures, whichcan be commented on and viewed by almost anyone. It can formnetworks with other people who share similar photography-relatedinterests.

Music Sharing

The most popular service here is last.fm where people can listento music of their choice as well as join groups of people with thesame musical taste.

INDIAN SOCIAL MEDIA SITES

Big Adda

Promoted by Anil Ambani, it had a high-pitched launch. The sitehas several star members, including Amitabh Bachchan and Ram GopalVarma.

Yaari

This site also made a lot of noise at the time of its launch in2007, but seems to have lost out to international competition.