Lasting Rose

There had been recent reports of Facebook loosing a bit of its sheen.

CNN reported on recent signs of 'Facebook Fatigue' and another interesting story about it being ripe for some imminent disaster. There were also reports about alternative and upcoming social media sites like Tumblr which could soon replace Facebook.

Despite the recent drop out of about six million Facebook users in the US, I guess all this talk of Facebook’s loss of face has to do with its valuation of over a hundred billion dollars, based on a membership of over six hundred million users.

The reality is, with the world population approaching seven billion by 2011, the tsunami of Facebook is only in the making!

At the heart of its powerful social impact on the world, which can only be likened to a tsunami, are factors which the inventors of this social media site wouldn’t have been even aware.

At my age, which I am leaving you to figure out, venturing in to something like blogging can be seen as a strong indication of a suicidal tendency.The unnecessary pressure you put yourself under, to write your blog, can easily do you in! 

You feel like a student who had been fooling around the whole year, trying to catch up on the subjects you never learned in the first place,  because you bunked your sessions and were busy with more interesting things in life.

One of the networking sites suggested by Useful Blog Networking Sites

But learn you must somehow in the limited time you have before your "exams", the new challenge you have taken upon yourself, to write readable posts. After all you want the whole world to flock to your blog like moths get attracted to a lone lantern. Don't you?

FRASIER, epitomizing the fallacy of radio as a medium for social healing, is one of my all time favourite TV shows. However, technology has now the power to render the humble FM radio a veritable social healing medium for the whole world!

FM stations, now available on line to a worldwide audience, can play a powerful role in social healing as this radio show from Dubai proves.





TV has revolutionised social interaction in communities on national levels through talk shows, reality shows, celebrity shows like X Factor and Oprah Winfry, mostly carried on the shoulders of their celebrity hosts.

Though these shows bring people together, around a common cause or interest, and have enormous entertainment value, their role in providing a reprieve for human pain and agony in day to day life is quite limited. At best, people watch them out of curiosity or boredom. Most TV shows do not leave something behind to lighten your burden, or give you the relief in opening up to someone!

A few years back the question was how much human the computer can become. Now the question is how much human the internet can be.

The tabs on the Huffington post are the closest I think the Internet technology has got to eliciting human emotions and communicating to others. I discovered this accidentally.

I had wandered on to the entertainment page on HuffPo on a piece of news about Russell Brand. Though I don’t know much about Russell, as I live in the UK, I have come across some TV shows and news item about him. I guess he was a celebrity presenter on an award function for something but what remains in memory is a Radio 2 row where he and his co presenter, Jonathan Ross I suppose, said some thing weird.

Anyway “weird” is the impression I have about Russell, probably etched in my mind from his hair style. You know the first impressions always count! I have no intention to offend Russell Brand or his admirers. I must reiterate that I don’t mean to belittle Russell Brand, his achievements, his contributions to the humanity or his celebrity status, which obviously is important enough for him to figure on the front page of Huffington Post. I just didn’t get the time or opportunity or need to know more about him. That explains why the “weird” feeling stuck in my mind.

When I glanced through the news item about Russell Brand being deported from Japan on the entertainment page of the Huffington Post yesterday, I noticed for the first time, below the photo a set of tabs with labels, one of them being “weird” and a navigation title “REACT”. To my surprise I clicked on it instinctively, without even thinking what it meant or will produce as a result of the click.