Not everything we see online is correct

The other day, I was scrolling through Twitter and chanced upon a video post. It showed an elderly couple dancing. The text in the post said, “He is 94, and she is 91 — they still have the moves!! Just awesome.”

I watched the video. The performance was indeed awesome: amazing, dexterous moves by an elderly couple. I couldn’t resist watching it again.

He is 94 and she is 91 - they still have the moves!! Just awesome.👍👌
VC: SM pic.twitter.com/XZXDCpjhaR

— Awanish Sharan (@AwanishSharan) July 4, 2020

I was tempted to retweet the post. But I checked myself after seeing the age of the couple mentioned in the tweet. Also, I wanted to know something more about this wonderful pair, before I shared the clip. 

CHECKING YOUTUBE

I went to YouTube to see if it had the video and if I could get any details.

Since I didn’t know their names, I wondered what I should search for. I began typing out “he is 9...” and immediately, many suggestions came up. 

I clicked on “he is 94, and she’s 91,” and seven videos matched the search. All of them are the same videos but with different headings.

Though there were not many details, I got the name of the couple - Dietmar and Nellia.

There are many more videos if you give a search with the couple’s names.

CHECKING WEBSITES

Now I opened a web browser to search the Internet for some information about them.

A few websites matched my search. I clicked on two of them: Seeitlive.co and mirror.co.uk.

See It Live in the article on April 29, 2019, said this about the couple: 

They are Nellia and Dietmar Ehrentraut, and they are 66 and 72 years old, respectively. They’ve been married to one another since 1970—and they both love to dance. Although they’re not necessarily a household name, the Ehrentrauts are pretty well-known in the dance community as passionate and daring dancers, no matter how old they get!

The article gives the sources of information, including the website of the couple. 

This is what the Mirror carried in its article on the couple on April 3, 2017:

An elderly Austrian couple have shot to online fame after their barnstorming routine in a veterans dance contest. 

Footage of Dietmar Ehrentraut, 70, and his wife Nellia, 64, energetically boogieing in Bavaria has been viewed more than 62 million times.

The young-at-heart pair, who live in the tranquil town of Durmersheim in Baden-Wuerttemberg but were born in Austria, have been dancing together for decades.

And a few weeks ago their moves were caught on camera by impressed audience member during a veterans dance competition in Bavaria.

See It Live is part of Shareably Media Network, which was founded in 2015 by a team of UC Berkeley graduates and is located in Los Angeles, California. See It Live shares “the best entertainment content from around the world with you”.

The Mirror is one of Britain’s well-known media organisations.

Nellia and Dietmar Ehrentraut are definitely not 94 and 91.

WHY I AM FOCUSSED ON THE AGE

I am not trying to be a spoilsport here. Nor am I belittling the awe-inspiring performance of the elderly couple, who, I now realise, are incredibly gifted, and they conduct training sessions. 

I think the wrong age must be called out not only because it’s factually incorrect but also because we tend to associate the couple’s impeccable performance with that age, which is wrong. 

Let’s be wary of “clickbait” information unless it’s on a well-established media organisation’s website or it’s been put out by a credible person or institution.

Let’s not share anything unless we are sure about its veracity.

B for Blogging - My favourite things to counter COVID-19 stress

(This post is part of the A to Z Challenge. I am writing this month on activities that keep me refreshed during these depressing days. It's Day 2 today.)

There are so many social media platforms -- from Facebook and Twitter to TikTok and Reddit, besides a relatively closed social media in the form of WhatsApp.

A forerunner of all these is the blog -- a term that evolved from 'web log' and 'we blog'. It was the beginning of the democratisation of publishing, or in other words, blogs gave us the freedom to put out information in the public domain, which hitherto was limited only to established publishing and other media institutions.

Here are some reasons why I have been blogging since 2004. The current blogging challenge has come at the right time: when I need a good distraction.

A blog post has no limitation of word count. It allows me to be very brief or very elaborate. I can put up texts, images, videos, besides providing hyperlinks to other web pages. It allows readers to interact with me via the comment option. My posts are not going to compete for people's attention on their timeline. Readers choose their own ways of following my posts.

I find reading blog posts more enjoyable and engaging compared to reading posts on other social media platforms. I also find it easier and more comfortable to relate to them. I have a list of bloggers whom I follow, and that list is slowly growing as I chance upon newer and newer blogs. This A to Z Challenge is giving me opportunities to discover more blogs and bloggers.

In short, blogs are a more well-grounded and therefore a more dependable social media platform.

Positive power of social media networks in rain-ravaged Kerala

We Are The World Blogfest

Many of you, especially those who are living in India, would have known about the torrential rain that battered the south Indian state of Kerala most of August, resulting in flooding of vast areas of the state. Over 400 people died, and property worth millions have been damaged.

Read more about the devastation in The New York Times and BBC.

BEACON OF HOPE

Amongst the calamity, what stood out as a beacon of hope and cheer was the way everyone got together as one, and lent a helping hand to others. There have been innumerable such instances across the state, which the media have been highlighting.

Many people came forward to write notes
for students who had lost their
notebooks in the flood. - The Hindu

One of the them is how a non-profit in the north Kerala district of Kozhikode, Incubation, initiated a campaign to provide the notes for different subjects that children had painstakingly written down in their classes but were lost in the floods.

A message on social media calling for volunteers spread rapidly among networks. The notes were then shared in PDF format with the volunteers who had signed up. They then copied the notes on to new notebooks, and handed them over to the coordinating agency, who then distributed them to children who had lost their school notes.

It is amazing that in virtually no time, nearly 10,000 notebooks, with all the notes, were recreated and handed over to the children.

Read more about this wonderful initiative:

Kerala pens history by writing notebooks for flood-hit children

‘Write’ help at the right time

To an unknown child, a notebook of compassion

A TOY STORY

Another similar effort was one that was championed by Ramesh Babu, a former captain of the Indian Navy who is currently a managing director of Mazagon Docks, a government shipbuilding company in Mumbai. (Incidentally, he was my senior in school.) His focus was on the toys that the children had lost. He contacted various agencies across the country, and thousands of toys are now on their way, all free of cost, for the children.

Read more:

Kerala flood relief has a made-in Mumbai toy story

These anecdotes are also a testament to the massive power of the social media to catalyse the good intents of people to bring about positive changes in our society.

(This post has been shared in two blogfests - Midlife Share The Love Link Party and We Are The World Blogfest)

Friends and so-called friends on Facebook

Photo courtesy: BBC

In many nations, including India, today (the first Sunday of August) is celebrated as Friendship Day, though the United Nations General Assembly has dedicated every July 30 for celebration of goodwill and affection among people. Not quite sure why different nations celebrate the same day on different dates.

I got a few Happy Friendship Day greetings today. But I saw plenty of them, quite strangely, floating around on social media.

Whenever I think about the word "friends", I wonder if Mark Zuckerberg spoiled that word. Imagine, people having hundreds of friends!

WHO IS A FRIEND? 

I don't know if there is an exact or true definition of it. But I guess, a friend is someone with whom we don't have any inhibitions in sharing something that is personal; with whom we would open up and show them our personal albums; whom we readily trust; and with whom we have a healthy give-and-take relationship of wise counsel and support.

Can we actually have hundreds of such people as friends? I really don't think so.

According to a Pew Research study in 2014, an average Facebook user has 338 friends. But are they really 'friends'?

DUNBAR NUMBER

Well-known British anthropologist Robin Dunbar made a correlation between the size of our brain and the size of our social group. He then came up with what is called the Dunbar Number which is 150. That is the maximum number of people we can have in our social circle. Our brain simply doesn't allow us to have more than that.

Dunbar also said that these 150 fall in four layers or circles. It is called the Dunbar Layers. At any point of time, the innermost or intimate circle of friends has just five people. The next circle has 10 more; the next another 35; and the last layer of a person's social group has another 100 - altogether making up the total of 150.

SO-CALLED FRIENDS

Since Zuckerberg is counting everyone in my Facebook contacts as 'friends', I have created a separate List, called Close Friends, in which there are just about 50, who form my friendly social group. Any personal posts are shared only with them. The rest are all acquaintances, colleagues, schoolmates, professional contacts etc.

Sometimes, when I look through my contacts (so-called friends) on Facebook, I find some whom I can barely recollect, who they are, or where I met them. I check the so-called mutual friends. And if I am still clueless, I remove them from my list.

I guess, Robin Dunbar is right. What do you think?

Gadfly CitiHub -- Know your elected representatives and connect with them

This post will be of particular interest to readers in the US and Canada, besides India.

It's about an app called Gadfly CitiHub, which is available on iOS as well as Android, developed by a startup based in Delhi called Wabi Tech.

What you can do with with the app

• When you switch on the app, it automatically detects your location and tells you, who your elected representatives in the Lok Sabha (Lower House of national Parliament), State Assembly and the local city municipal corporation are, along with their details. 
• You can change location manually to find out who the representatives are for other places as well. 
• You can contact them via phone, SMS, email or any other medium they are on.   
• The app gives the social media feed of the elected representatives and also the feed of the news articles in which they figure.

Why this app

• The founder of the company Nikhil Bapna decided to develop this app because he felt in India it is very difficult to not only easily find out who your elected representatives are, but also contact them to convey any information or views regarding governance issues or feedback.
• The app is available in India, the US and Canada. The information regarding elected representatives in the US and Canada are still being updated.

Related links

• I tried out this app and also spoke to Bapna. Read my article here.
• The iOS version of the app.
• The Android version of the app.

News: real, old and fake

It is not that there are a lot more things -- good and bad -- happening in the world now. We are just getting to know them, since we have the internet, mobile phones and social media. Thanks to these three innovations, we also speak a lot more, we write a lot more, we hear a lot more, and we read a lot more today.

Earlier too we had fake news. But we generally called them rumours, gossip, lies etc. Today, they have a new medium to spread, which is faster and reaches more people, that too directly. Now, these fast-spreading rumours and lies have a fanciful term.

WhatsApp, Facebook are not news sources

Nowadays you find many forwards and shared posts, especially on WhatsApp groups. It's like those forwards we used to see in emails, some 15 to 20 years ago, when emails were new to all of us.

There is no idea from where the information contained in them have been sourced. There will be no credit or no indication who the author is or who has created a particular video.

There are cases of old news clippings doing the rounds on WhatsApp. A few months ago, I received a forwarded message from my sister-in-law in Bhopal that the stage during a school function in Bengaluru collapsed killing many children. There was a clipping of TV news channel as well with the message. I immediately realised that it was an incident that happened in February 2016. No one had died. Some people have uploaded those clips on Youtube in January this year, giving the impression that it happened this year.

People keep saying, "I read it on WhatsApp" or "I saw it on Facebook", giving one an impression that WhatsApp and Facebook are news sources. But, they are only platforms on which we read information put out by different people -- just as Google is not a website, and is only a search engine that gets you relevant websites for you to read. What I mean is WhatsApp and Facebook are not equivalents of a BBC or a Fox News or an NYT.

Unlike social media (where mostly individuals post information), institutional media have in place a system where information goes through multiple people who not only fact-check them, but also vet the information, before they reach the public domain. News media organisations are not supposed to put out unverified information.

Next time you read something of major consequence or import, on WhatsApp or Facebook, or any platform for that matter, it may be a good idea to see who has posted that. Is that information from a credible source?

How do you know if a source is credible?

There are a few generally accepted parameters. One, a well-known or reputed institution. Like, if it's some information related to astronomy, see if it's from any space-related organisation, like NASA or ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation). Two, a well-known or reputed person, or someone who is occupying a position of some responsibility.

Another source which is considered credible, is 'institutional media'. By that I mean news organisations. For example, Reuters, Associated Press, Press Trust of India, BBC, Fox News, NYT, The Hindustan Times, The Times of India, etc. I am using the term 'institutional media' to differentiate it from 'social media'. Earlier, by media, we understood it as only 'institutional media'.

The professional-amateurs

Having said that, one should remember that sources of information need not be only professional organisations or professional individuals. One can't be biased against amateurs, just because their chosen field of specialisation is not their professional field.

For example, there could be a bank executive who is a great fan of movies. Or a professional dancer who is very knowledgeable about West Asia (why not?) Or a student who is a cricket enthusiast. They could be actually authorities on those subjects. They might be posting on social media about their favourite topics. More importantly, they might also be ensuring that what they post is factually correct, and might even go to the extent of attributing information to sources, like a professional journalist is expected to do.

Such people have come to be known as 'professional amateurs'.

So, let us not be totally dismissive about social media, with the comment that all that appears in social media is wrong and fake news. Actually, some of the big stories have broken on social media. A few that I can remember are:

• In 2009, the story of a plane landing on Hudson river broke on Twitter.
• In 2011, when action on Osama bin Laden's hideout was ongoing, there was a person, who was tweeting about the unusual sight of aircraft flying overhead, and thereby becoming the first in the world to report the incident.
• In 2010, in Bengaluru, when a multistory building Carlton Towers caught fire, many people who sought refuge on the top floor tweeted about it with pictures, even before any journalist or news photographers or TV journalists reached the spot.

There are plenty of such examples. In fact, journalists get tipped off by tweets and Facebook posts.

To err is human

Not that "credible" sources can't go wrong. There have been cases of people occupying official positions like a Prime Minister, and media having got their facts wrong. But those are famous exceptions rather than the rule. One famous example:

• In March 1979, Prime Minister Morarji Desai announced in the Lok Sabha (Lower House of Parliament) that Jayaprakash Narayan (the architect of opposition unity against Indira Gandhi) was dead. All India Radio and news agencies put out the news. But JP was still alive. He passed away in October that year.

How to check fake news

Today, thanks to Twitter and Facebook, in a sense everyone is a journalist. So, just as professional journalists are expected to fact-check information, all of us too have to fact-check what we see and read on WhatsApp or Facebook.

And, please don't forward any information (especially those that are of critical implication) that you haven't verified yourself.

It's better not to have an unverified information passed around, than to spread wrong information.

(This post is a part of the "Blogging from A to Z Challenge April 2018.")

--------------------------------

Update on April 17

What a stunning coincidence this is, just within a day of writing the above post.

When I was travelling by the Metro today, I overheard the man sitting next to me telling someone on the phone that war has broken out between Russia and Britain. He was asking the other person to check out BBC, and that it the news is all over the place.

I was startled hearing this, and looked at him. Just before leaving home I had checked the news channels. I have half a dozen news apps on my phone, and I had not seen any notification. Even as he was speaking I opened the BBC and NYT apps. There was nothing there.

Since he had seen me looking at him, while he was talking, after his conversation, he repeated what he had spoken on the phone. I asked him where did he get to know this. He said WhatsApp, and opened the message. It was a BBC news clip. I was really surprised. He started playing it.

It was a BBC Breaking News alert about a Russian jet being shot down by NATO forces near the coast of Latvia. I immediately realised it was an old clip. I told him, "The Syrian conflict has been going on for seven years. And there have many such serious incidents in the past." I couldn't recollect when this incident happened.

I did a quick web search with the key words "latvia russian plane shot down" It was an incident that happened in 2015. I found a Youtube clip that was uploaded in 2017, and it is that clip that is circulating on WhatsApp. Why it is getting circulated is a no brainer: the ongoing crisis over chemical attack and the US missile strike in response.

He was concerned because his brother-in-law is leaving for London this evening, he told me. He said he was speaking to his mom, and he now looked very relieved. He called his mom, and said it was fake news.

I told him never ever believe any such news that comes as WhatsApp forwards, unless doing a web search and confirming with a credible source.

An afternoon of food, books and friends

I am part of a Facebook group of bibliophiles. When I saw a post a week ago, about plans for a get together, I had mixed thoughts running through my mind.

Images of striking up conversations with, and getting to know people with whom I had interacted only online, began flashing. That's exciting for me. Moreover, I have always felt that bonding with people having common interests is easier, than randomly saying Hi to a stranger and striking up a conversation.

But another thought seemed to be weighing me down. After all, they are strangers. Nowhere it's said bibliophiles are also the most affable human beings on earth. (In fact, I know some with airs of huge diameter around them, and attitudes that poke you everywhere.)

Fighting off skepticism, and with fingers crossed, I replied to the post, telling the organizer to count me in.

On the appointed day, yesterday; a few minutes after the appointed hour of 12.30 pm, I landed up at Toit, a popular joint on 100 ft Road in Indiranagar. As I reached the 2nd floor, I was guided to the far corner, where tables had been booked.

I was neither the first to arrive nor the last. But the body language of the few who were already seated seemed to convey the impression that they knew me or recognized me (obviously via the FB profile photo.) Broad smiles, shake of hands, and self-introductions. As everyone else trouped in, the protocol carried on for a few more minutes.

We took out the books we had brought for either exchange or giveaway, and spread them on the table. The focus quickly shifted to that as each one of us lounged forward to pick them up, flipped pages and exchanged notes. Ice had broken even before we realised. Comments about how possessive we are about our books ... jokes and banter ...

Before landing up there, I had thought no one would find me interesting to talk to, and I would myself be struggling to make conversations with strangers. (My social skills are pretty bad.) I was completely wrong. We found many topics (besides books) to talk about. In fact, I was talking so much, I wasn't eating; so had to shut up and focus on food.

The best part, some of them were friends of my friends -- two of them are good friends of my ex-colleague; and the cousin of another is married to my schoolmate and family friend. What a pleasant surprise!

As the drinks arrived - from water to cocktails to beer - the conversation centred around how Indian and western cultures look at drinks... And, when the food - broccoli, pasta, pizza, burger etc - started landing up, the focus shifted to vegetarian vs non-vegetarian. How beef is Kerala's "favorite food", and what would happen if it were banned in Kerala.

Meanwhile, I realised quite late that it had been raining cats and dogs. A gentle reminder was the few drops, which found the gaps in the ceiling, falling on me. O, by the way, toit in French is roof.

At the end of it all, around 4 pm, the most remarkable takeaway was the bonhomie: I didn't feel anyone was a stranger. The only flipside, if there was one, was that the seating arrangement at the corner didn't make it quite comfortable for all of us to move around and mingle with one another as much as we would have wanted to. But we all had resolved to catch up, and keep in touch.

As the evening gave way to night, my Facebook notification pings wouldn't stop buzzing, with friend requests, posts and comments in the group.

So long. ... The buzz now is that the next meet-up will be a potluck party.

Online liberty and tolerance

Section 66A of the IT Act has been struck down. But does it mean that people can make objectionable comments and get away with it?

There are sections in IPC like 153, 153A, 504, 506 etc which have been invoked in the past, and will continue to be invoked in the future too.

What has been struck down is only a section that was introduced specifically mentioning electronic communication.

Since more communication today happens online rather than offline, undoubtedly we need clear idea of what is okay and what is not okay.

NEW AGE DILEMMA

I remember being told when I was a child how I should be careful while talking when elders are around. That's no longer the case now. The new generation particularly is very outspoken. However, not all their comments are objectionable.

Very often, what we see online is only an extension of what we see offline, probably a bit more as the virtual setting works as an incentive to open the minds out.

Free expression of thoughts, ideas, comments, suggestions, criticisms, alternative ways of approaching issues and problems should be seen as healthy rather than objectionable. They might look on the face of it cut-and-dried or irreverent or sometimes even outrageous. But as long as the intentions are good, it should be okay.

What should actually be seen as objectionable and clamped down strictly are incitement to violence, hatred, enmity among sections of people, statements that are coloured and discriminatory from the point of view of caste, religion, gender, language etc. made to show sections of people in poor light etc.

NEED FOR PRUDENCE

We may all have the freedom to speak out our minds. But we should also be mature enough to exercise discretion and ensure that we speak the right thing, at the right time, in the right place, in the right manner.

All of us do that in our daily lives. So many times we would have decided not to say something to someone at a particular time in a particular place, because we thought it was inappropriate. So exercise of such prudence and discretion is nothing new or unusual.

On the internet many of us tend to get carried away because we are physically way from the real world. In one way that is good, because some fresh, original thoughts flow out of our minds. At the other end, when we see such postings and comments, we need to understand that these are unfettered, true feelings of people. We need to acknowledge the genuineness behind the thoughts.

As we see more free expressions of thoughts, parallely we also need to develop greater amounts of tolerance. They are interlinked.

Sometimes I see people who actively support free speech are highly intolerant when other people exercise their right to free speech. That won't do.

Careers in Social Media

I attended the Careers in Social Media session at the Social Media Week in Bengaluru today. The main reason I went for it was that I am frequently asked by youngsters, what jobs they can hope to get in online media.

Here below are some of the points I gleaned from the talks by the members of the panel and answers they gave to the questions from the audience.

Types of jobs

There are three types: Creative, Communicative, Analytic.
Creative jobs have got to do with design and visual appeal.
Communication refers to textual content.
Analytical jobs are about crunching numbers and analyzing them.

How do you know you will fit into this type of job?

Ask yourself if you have a passion for working on these lines. You should be comfortable with online social media. May be you should intern in one of the companies and check out if the job excites you.

What does the job involve?

It's about managing a company's social media presence. The generic designation is Social Media Manager or Director, who has a team that looks into various aspects of how business is publicized through social media, and how people respond to it.

What qualifications should an aspirant have?

A good knowledge of the domain area. If you are into creating textual content, then you should have good command over the language. A formal degree would no doubt add value; but what will matter is not the degree but how good are you at work.

How big is the demand?

Social media management is still evolving. The requirements of different companies are different. But the fact is that all companies are trying to scale up their social media presence. And, all of them are looking for competent hands. There is lot of opportunity out there. There is a huge demand.

How does one look for jobs?

Make sure you yourself have a good social media presence. Lot of recruitment nowadays take place via LinkedIn and Twitter.
Update your LinkedIn profile, with lot of details of what you do. Use the right key words, so that your profile shows up during search.

How good is the pay?

It's getting better and better. Right now, there are people who have been hired for around Rs 3 lakh. However, pay varies from company to company, and depends on what job you are actually doing. In about 3 years time, Social Media Managers can hope to be on a par with software programmers. 

Use and misuse of hashtag

The first time a hashtag was ever used was around 7 years ago. Today it's very common on Twitter updates and even on Facebook status messages. Some people use it even on WhatApp and SMS messages. And, it's very evident that not many people clearly understand what a hashtag means; and when and how to use it.

What is a hashtag?

It's nothing but a hash followed by a tag. The tag is a label, or key word(s) that indicate(s) a topic of discussion. So, hashtag comprises a word, or a group of words without space in between them, and prefixed with the hash symbol, #. (Wikipedia entry on hashtag)

For eg: #bbcworldcup, #BringBackOurGirls, #Firstboss

The hashtag was first used on Twitter, and works best there. It serves to group together messages on a particular topic. It makes it easy for people to search messages on that topic by entering the hashtag in the search box on Twitter.

But why have a hashtag when we can search for tweets by simply typing out a word or a phrase like we search for websites in Google?

That's right. If you want to search for all tweets on Obama, you can key in Obama in the search box and get all the tweets with the word Obama in them. So is the case with any other word or phrase. For example: healthcare, MH370, Iraq fighting etc. Indeed, you can search for tweets on Twitter exactly like you search for websites on Google.

Why use hashtag?

A news organization like the BBC or the New York Times, or institutions or advocacy groups, or individual Twitter users, may create a hashtag for an issue or an event. They publicize this hashtag, calling on people to use that hashtag with their tweets. The aim is to bunch all the tweets on that issue or event under one hashtag. It also helps people looking for tweets on a particular issue or event or a person.

For example: for the world cup football matches currently on in Brazil, BBC has created a hashtag #bbcworldcup, So all tweets on BBC related to the world cup has this hashtag. By tweeting with this hashtag, you also stand a chance of getting your tweets featured in the live stream on the BBC site.

The most famous hashtag in recent times was "#BringBackOurGirls". It was created after the abduction of over 200 schoolchildren by militants in Nigeria on April 14. (More from BBC)

There was intense debate online about who created the #BringBackOurGirls hashtag. The BBC, after a thorough check, says it was first used on April 23 by Ibrahim M Abdullahi, a lawyer in Nigeria. (More)

The BBC has some interesting statistics about the #BringBackOurGirls

The purpose of creating that hashtag was to group all tweets on this important incident under one label. Whether the online activism achieved anything tangible is still being debated.

Anyone can create a hashtag. For example, you can tweet about your first boss, with the hashtag #FirstBoss. Popularize it, and get people to tweet with this hashtag. So, if you search Twitter for this hashtag, you will get to see all tweets on this topic.

Wrong use of hashtag

Merely putting a hash sign in front of a word does not make that word a hashtag. It serves any purpose only if it's clickable. So, no point using it in WhatsApp messages and SMSes. Though it's most commonly used in Twitter, Facebook too lets you see a feed of all posts with a particular hashtag.

Remember this

• Hashtags should be as short as possible. Because, longer the hashtag, fewer will be characters in your tweet.

• If a hashtag has more than one word, then there shouldn't be any space between the words.

• It should be unique, or else it defeats the purpose of creating one.

• Hashtag works only on the website it has been used. You can search on Twitter hashtags that are used on Facebook.

Newspaper seen as credible source of information

Those days there were no apps, mobiles, computers, internet or 24x7 news coverage on a dozen television channels. After getting to know very briefly about news developments on All India Radio or Doordarshan, we had to wait for the next day's newspaper to know the details.

Cut to the present. The widespread belief is that fewer and fewer people, especially teenagers and youth, are interested in reading the newspaper. They, instead, turn to websites of their choice or apps on mobile phones or tablets.

The number of newspapers might dwindle, even substantially, over a period of time. But it may be too early to write their obituary.

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to attend an open house of some readers of the newspaper I work for. And, in many ways it was an eye-opener. Some of the points I gleaned from the interaction were:

• Newspaper, especially the broadsheet format, is considered as the most credible source of information
• Children are not put off by the language. In fact, they look up to newspapers to learn new expressions and usages.
• Youngsters love to see colour and illustrations in newspapers.
• Few people think that newspapers should minimize or abandon their predominant serious role of informing and educating people, in favour of trivia and entertainment
• It's very difficult to understand what exactly readers want since they are interested in everything from local civic issues to international political developments.
• Web editions are mainly to check out the latest news developments. But there is huge demand for the e-paper format, the digital version of the physical paper. Because people want to see different sections and page numbers.

Even though lot of news is disseminated via blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Buzzfeed, Reddit etc, most people turn to news organizations for confirmation. The web formats may be catching on, but for the average reader, the printed word on paper seems to still comes across with a stamp of authenticity. Just as movie houses have thrived, though in fewer numbers, in spite of DVDs and online, many years down the line, we would still see physical newspapers coexisting with the web and e-paper formats.

Cucumbertown: A recipe to bring chefs and foodies together

We are all familiar with companies founded in garages and wooden sheds. But here is one where the founders were sitting in their respective drawing rooms in three corners of the world – two in Bangalore, one in the US, and the other in Switzerland – and none of them had met the others.

There are a number of blogs on restaurants, dining and recipes. But, Cherian Thomas, a Bangalore-based foodie, realised that these blogs are restricted only to the tech-savvy community, since opening a blog and maintaining it requires some amount of knowledge in website management. It struck him that there isn’t a Facebook for cooks, like there is one for photographers or designers and Cucumbertown, a social network for chefs and foodies, was born.

“I used to cook with my brother from the time I was in 7th standard. Later, I realised that many housewives, mothers and grandmoms, besides many men who cook as a hobby, don’t have an online presence, because they are neither comfortable with writing a blog nor have adequate motivation to write long articles on food,” says Thomas, who is an engineer by profession. “So I thought I would devise a mechanism that will make it easy for everyone who is interested in cooking and recipes to have an online identity -- a community where foodies can easily exchange tips on cooking: that’s the premise of Cucumbertown.”

The site is simple to use. You can either log in with your Facebook username and password or create a new account. “Once you are onboard, you can search by ingredient, cuisine or cooking time, upload photos and write recipes, and share all that you cook,” says Thomas.

“I remember one of my friends saying that his grandmother knows a few good Konkani recipes, and he feared that those dishes might become extinct,” Thomas recalls. “Cucumbertown will not let them become extinct. On our site, you mingle with not only chefs and food bloggers, but also with a huge number of home cooks who might end up sharing a few family secrets as well. This is also a place where you can save your recipes for generations to come.”

Thomas, who is the CEO, had worked in Zynga and Support.com. The other three co-founders are CTO Arun Prabhakar who previously worked with Taggles and TutorVista; Chris Luscher, partner at InformationArchitects, a premier design firm in Zurich; and Dan Hauk, theme designer of Tumblr and co-founder of BrewTracker.

Thomas explains the importance of having world-class design experts as cofounders of the Cucumbertown: “For a consumer product, design is extremely important, as important as the website content, for users to keep coming back to the site. Secondly, we decided to work with professionals in America and Europe because we wanted to create a global product.”

Thomas says that Cucumbertown has users from 60 countries, the largest audience, after the US, is from Australia and the UAE. “Thanks to our site, we know of some interesting American-Arabic fusion recipes, created by Americans living in the Gulf. Sanaa A’esha, a user, says, “I spend half my days lookng for recipes, interesting food blogs and sharing my own personal creations. I would have thought of developing this site, if this hadn't come up.”

Cucumbertown raised a $300,000 seed round last year. The first round of investors included Naval Ravikant of AngelList, Paul Singh of 500 Startups, FarmVille co-creator Sizhao Zao Yang, founder of MightyText Maneesh Arora, early Google product guy Richard Chen and Sonique Player co-creator Tabreez Varjee.

(This article appeared in the Brainwave column of The Times of India, Bangalore, yesterday.)

Three cheers to our weather bureau

A proud moment for our weather scientists and India Meteorological Department who accurately forecast every detail of cyclone Phailin and saved hundreds of thousands of lives in Orissa. One may say that's their job, but given the poor reputation they have, they deserve a round of applause.

Meteorologists have always been the butt of jokes in our country. It's a pastime to look at the weather column and trash the forecast. Such is the disdain that if someone is planning a picnic, they check if there is a prediction of thundershowers!

The poor quality of prediction was never because of the lack of well-qualified meteorologists. India has some of the best scientists in the world. But they lacked state-of-the art technology to collect and analyse data. Thankfully, there's been change. Weather men say they now have good computer-backed systems for data analysis and forecast. And, we have seen the result.

In the runup to Phailin, our weather scientists were criticised by their counterparts abroad for underestimating the magnitude of Phailin. While IMD forecast a maximum wind speed of 220 kmph, western weather centres put the figure at 315 kmph. A noted meteorologist, Eric Holthaus, was quoted as saying, "Phailin is already worse than what the IMD is forecasting. A recent satellite estimate put Phailin's current intensity on par with 2005's Hurricane Katrina... I feel that IMD's underestimate of the strength and impact of this storm is potentially tragic and could catch many millions of people off guard." Katrina hit the US coast in 2005 killing over 1,800 people.

The western commentators seemed to have been bound by their stereotypical perception of India. Our meteorologists stuck to their assessment. Following up on their forecast, our National Disaster Management Authority in association with state and central governments did a commendable job of moving close to 9 lakh people to safety and reducing significantly the loss of human lives. Finally, our forecast turned out to be spot on.

It was good to see our weather scientists and disaster management officials getting their well-deserved prime-time coverage on all national news channels last night.

Incidentally, the India Meteorolgical Department has a very good website. It has a Facebook page too, and it has close to 7,000 Likes.

Time to take our weathermen seriously. No jokes, please.

Shutting petrol pumps and #MoilyIdeas

Petroleum minister Veerappa Moily's idea of shutting down petrol pumps at 8 pm in order to save fuel consumption, shows how befuddled the central political and administrative machinery in the country is, on improving the economy. (The original story in Indian Express & in Epaper). It's difficult to even understand the logic behind this bizarre thought.

Very few petrol pumps are open late in the night, and fewer open round the clock. Most petrol pumps anyway shut by 10 pm. Never heard of people filling up petrol and going on long drives in the night just because they saw fuel stations are open after 8 pm. Wonder how much Moily thought the oil companies would save by closing these pumps 2 hours early.

If at all such a restriction comes into place, one, people will fill more petrol in the hours when the pumps are open. Two, people who need fuel on emergency will be put to great hardship. Three, a remote possibility of vested interests hoarding petrol and selling it near stations illegally at a higher price for people who are caught unawares and need fuel urgently after 8 pm.

Moily's remark has led to a flood of comments on Twitter with the hash tag #Moilyideas. It was trending for a while yesterday. But the tweets are still pouring in here.

Here are some of them:

Nikhil Narayanan ‏@nikhilnarayanan
"Boss, I need to leave by 7 today. Gotta fill fuel" ~ Possible office-talk, thanks to #moilyideas 

Mocking Bard ‏@Spooferman_ 
People are getting fat. Please shut down restaurants between 8am and 8pm.

IndiaFirst ‏@NiketNabriya1
Government bans sex from 8pm to 8am to conrol population explosion! 

Faking News ‏@fakingnews
BREAKING: ATMs to close down by 8 PM to arrest the slide of rupee

Gaurav Sabnis ‏@gauravsabnis
After 8 pm, women traveling alone in cars should walk on the streets instead.

Now Moily says the idea to shut down pumps came from the public and not from the government.

Everyone, including people in government, know that there's not control on fuel consumption for government vehicles. The common logic is that since it comes free, why bother. That attitude has to change, because that's where the maximum wastage occurs.

Secondly, limit free trips and travel allowances for government functionaries.

Thirdly, remove the subsidy for diesel. Or if that could add to inflation, then have differential pricing mechanism for it.

I am sure people are willing to take the hard measures, provided they see that the government itself is setting an example.

Not all autorickshaw drivers are bad

Autorickshaw drivers are a much-maligned lot. Very rarely do we come across one who is not rude or arrogant. But there are exceptions, which give us the much-needed hope.

The following is a Facebook post by Rita Senthil Selvaraj, who works with Cognizant Technology Solutions, posted in the last 24 hours.

I was for sure lucky today..
took an auto from koramangala to yemlur(my house), in between it started raining heavy. somehow i reached home safely and the driver u see in photo dropped me till the door step so that i don't get drenched. I was so excited to see baby that i made the payment and left my iPhone 4 (Gifted by my hubby on my birthday) in the auto..
after almost 35 mins I thought of making a call to my parents and here i don't find my phone. my hubby Senthil Selvaraj called from his cell to trace the phone n luckily the auto driver had kept the phone safe with him which he received.. he was dropping someone to whitefield but he promised that he will return the phone after the drop.. imagine heavy rain and the driver was so kind and honest that he dint think of his comfort.. he was not carrying any phone of his own. it took almost 1 hr for him to come back.. we generally dont trust auto drivers as they keep asking extra money, late night work and what not.. so with that mentality we used find friend and find my iPhone apps to trace the phone and the route of my iphone was sure to my house.. in that heavy rain he did come home and returned my phone..
We should seriously appreciate such people on earth.. and we do.. this auto driver's name is Zamir auto number KA 03 9847.. Thanks Zamir for being so honest and trustworthy.. and also to be a reason of making my day lucky.. 

Not all absent-minded people forget their phones in autorickshaws. And, rarely finders take the trouble to return the phone to the owner. Zamir's effort needs to be lauded. Hope we have many more people like him.

How to remote log out

If you headed home from office, without logging out of Facebook or Gmail, you can do so from anywhere using the ‘remote log out’ feature.

In Facebook, click on the tiny gear sign on the top right of the page, go to ‘account settings’ and then to ‘security’ on the left pane. Under ‘security settings’, click on ‘active sessions’.

No one else might be using your account, but you would not have logged out of Facebook, leaving the session active. Anyone can gain access to your account in such circumstances. To remote log out, click on ‘end activity’.

In Gmail, at the bottom right side of the page, you will see details of your latest email access. If someone else is simultaneously using your account, you will see a notification there.

Click on the ‘Details’ link below it. A new window opens, with a notification on whether the account is simultaneously open elsewhere. Like in the case of FB, you might not have logged out of the account, leaving it active. If so, you will see an option to ‘log out of all sessions’. It also shows you the details of your previous 10 accesses to the account.

How to declutter your Facebook news feed

If you have many friends or followers on your social network, it’s only natural that your news feed is cluttered. You are either swarmed with photos and videos; or you miss the all-important updates from the people you really care about. Social media makes better sense if you are organized.

Be selective while accepting friend requests. There is no obligation to ‘confirm’, since, even if you don’t, he or she will remain subscribed to your public posts.

Even if you have 1,000 friends on Facebook, you can still have your small private corners to share photos and status updates. They are called Lists.

Facebook, by default, provides three lists: Close Friends, Acquaintances and Restricted. A few others like family, your workplaces and schools, are automatically created, depending upon the details you add to your profile.

To see the lists, go to “Friends” on the left pane of the home page. You can create your own lists as well, like “Party pals”, “Teachers” etc. When you upload photos, make them visible to one or more lists, so that only people in those lists will see them. The same applies to your posts.

In Facebook, contacts added to ‘Close friends’ show up more often on News Feed.

In Twitter too, you can make Lists. Categorize people you follow like Celebrities, Friends, News organizations, etc. This will help if you are following too many people on Twitter.

Freedom of choice -- to igonre

Controversies over tweets and Facebook posts are nothing new. It’s been there for over a decade, ever since the advent of web 2.0 that gave us tools to publish, broadcast and telecast whatever we wanted to tell the world. Earlier, controversies were around blog posts. There have been numerous cases of netizens losing jobs, being served legal notice for defamation, threatened, forced to take down posts etc.

Information -- an objective statement of fact or a biased personal view -- exists either in the private or public domain. When only known number of people are aware of what is said or discussed, then that is in the private domain. For example, letters, phone calls, emails, SMSs etc between two people or amongst a group of people. But, when communication happens amongst countless number of people, it is in the public domain. And that's where all the problems lie.

Earlier, defamation and libel cases were only related to what was published in books, magazines or newspapers or what was broadcast on radio or telecast on television. Most of the communication then was in the private domain. But today, arguably, we spend a lot of time talking to the world at large -- uploading status messages and comments, besides pictures and videos. Perhaps what is forgotten in the process is, there is a huge number of people -- most of them strangers, unlike in the private domain -- reading and listening to what is being said.

There is an old adage: "My freedom ends where your freedom begins". This makes eminent sense when two people communicate with each other, or in such private-domain interactions, where "I" and "you" are known entities. But does this adage hold good in today's changed communication paradigm?

Facebook has come to symbolize the new communication structure -- a lot of supposedly private and personal information and views are broadcast, knowingly or unknowingly, to the whole world in the public domain. The virtually unbridled freedom of expression that everyone has to express their views has forced us to adopt a new way to tackle the torrent of comments.

Facebook is also about a new freedom of choice -- where you choose to ignore. When friend requests from people  you aren't quite bothered about come, ignore. If for some reason, you are compelled to add them, then make list of people you want to follow, and ignore the rest. There is the 'hide' option, where you can choose not to see the types of posts you don't like. You can customize the news feed option: choose to ignore what you don't like.

Where is the compulsion to read and react to everything in the public domain? Ignore. Just as I may not make favourable comments always, why should I make unfavourable comments whenever I see something I don't like? Ignore.

Inundated with so much information in the public domain, the freedom of choice that I seem to exercise nowadays is to ignore. There may be limits to freedom to my expression; but thankfully, no one has curtailed my freedom to ignore. That's an absolute freedom I enjoy.

(Crossposted from Kaleidoscope)

Personal computers are not dying

Desktops may be on their deathbed but definitely not any other personal computing device.

The original definition of PC referred to desktops, the complete set of CPU, monitor, keyboard, speakers, modem and voltage stabilizer. Now desktops have shrunk to laptops and netbooks (notebooks). PCs are seen different from smartphones and tablet; though mobile devices are highly personal and effective computing devices.  
 
The talk of imminent death of PCs is evidently prompted by the ever-growing popularity of mobile phones. Many people have two phones, or a phone and a tablet. But it’s no argument that personal computers, to mean laptops and netbooks, are dying.
 
In spite of all the advantages, mobile devices have their flip side. One, small user interface, because of the screen size. A 14- or 16-inch monitor of a laptop is definitely not the same as a 4-inch mobile screen. Higher dimensions of 5, 7 and 10 inch screens are a shade better. Besides, wider screens are easy on the eye.
 
Two, mobile devices generally work well for quick work on the go; a multitasking device that lets you talk, text, check mails and Facebook, send a one-line reply, do a web search, etc. But if you want to watch a 3-hour movie or live streaming of a sports event, or read or type a long document, the wider screen and broad keyboard of a laptop is more comfortable.
 
Three, screen navigation is easier when it comes to keyboard and mouse. Be it opening multiple tabs or copy-pasting text or working on photos or playing games, the superior user experience of a laptop is undeniable.
 
PC shipments in India grew by 4.9 per cent to 2.99 million units in July-September period of the current year over the previous quarter, according to global market intelligence and advisory services provider IDC. Even the netbook with 10-inch screen and much lower processing capacity compared to the laptop, was supposed to have flopped but that’s not the case. Many people possess both netbook and laptop, and use each for different purposes.
 
But it is a fact that PC shipments have slowed over the past few years. One, most people have a laptop. So the boom-time, first-acquisition numbers have tapered. Two, with tablets and other options, use of laptops have reduced, making them last longer. So, the replacement-buy is delayed.
 
Personal computers will be around for some time. Multiple devices is the norm -- each being used for a specific purpose. Nevertheless, a time may come when the nascent convertibles, a cross between mobile phones and laptops with detachable keyboards, would replace laptops. But that is quite some time away. At least now, it’s too premature to say PCs are dying.

(Crossposted from Kaleidoscope)

Gaming company Zynga aims high on mobile phones

From playing alone, to playing against a computerized opponent, to now playing against real people, be they friends or strangers: it's a whole new genre of social games. The biggest boost it got in recent times was arguably the epidemic spread of Farmville over Facebook. And Zynga can claim some credit, for it was their creation.