If Facebook was born in India- II

First of all, thank you for the numerous suggestions and feedback that you gave for If Facebook was born in India .. Trust me I really didn’t want to write a sequel to any of my posts…Since, my friends felt many more things should be added to our very own “Your Neighbour” social network, so I had to write this Part 2 post 

We are already done with customizing Like button, Share button, Wall, comments, poke …Added new buttons like treat, dub in native language etc…

I was asked about the step-motherly treatment towards ‘friend request’ section…   So we’ll start off with this section first now! We always don’t request anybody to be ‘friends’ with us… We Indians are very straight-forward people… Right from our kindergarten, we don’t say ” Can we be friends?”… Indians put it this way ” Hey I wanna be friends with you… You agree or not?” We always expect an yes or no answer immediately. So we change friend request to “Be my friend” This “Be my friend” section should have 2 buttons… Deal and No Deal  If the user clicks on Deal, he accepts to be his friend and will be immediately redirected to our Treat? section as a token of friendship  Very much Indian right ?  So, now what happens if he clicks on No Deal? Nothing much… he’s rejecting his friendship and a better luck next time message will be sent to the sender (if at all he plans to be his friend still  ) If no button is clicked, the “Be my friend” notification will be shelved in an area called loft  In India, we always store things that are not useful right now but may be useful sometime in the future (Future thinking you see  ) in a place called loft  So this area called “loft” will contain all these unanswered notifications for future reply 

Next is application that tells us about the auspicious days and time… This application will be activated by default… This would be very useful for uncles and aunties who do everything based on the auspicious days and time. They needn’t rush to find a calendar to get all these information you see! Our team of astrologers will take care of this section and the daily prediction section 

India is a country that is difficult to predict… Today everything will be fine, but tomorrow a strike will be announced! So in order to deal with this, we’ll have spy working in all government sectors. If there is a probability of a strike they’ll alert us before hand and our app “Probability of holiday” will be enabled. This will give us the probable date of strike, so that we can plan our holiday well in advance  May be in future we’ll try and make thesestrikes and bandhs fall on friday and monday… so that we can get a long weekend 

Now a days, we have become all health conscious, all of a sudden  so we’ll have a section that throws light about the simple exercises, yoga with photos of the postures  , healthy diets and also do’s and dont’s for a common disease…We’ll have to rope in doctors for this  So if any of you have doctor friends… applications are welcome 

During any crucial cricket match (only crucial…as we keep playing matches almost everyday  ), we’ll have to customize the entire look of “your Neighbour” showing our support to Indian team (no matter how we play  ) Just like how the advertisements and products make us eat blue, think blue, bleed blue etc… “Your Neighbour” should also cash in at this time!

The front page of FB says “Its Free and always will be”… This should be modified in our Indian edition as “its FREE FREE FREE” This is more than enough to attract our Indian crowd  As we have an affinity towards “free” and “discounts”… We should also give away coupons (even if its silly..its ok  ) very often to attract and retain the crowd! Marketing technique you see 

Notifications should be modified as “Flash news” and the flash news should be a catchy one-liner…Clicking on that, you should get the entire news, as we are used to reading news that way  For eg: Flash news: “A new friendship blooms in Your neighbour” This will make us curious and definitely will make Indians click this… At that time we’ll have to let the cat out of the bag “New friendship- XYZ is now friends with ABC”  This is a technique that is sure to work here 

Okay, that’s all from me  No more part 3s and 4s… Errrrr…as an Indian…what to do… am no different … Have an habit of freezing at an interesting scene and continuing it as the next episode  And of course promises are meant to be broken right..?  

If 'Facebook' was born in India...

I am no Mark Zuckerburg, but yeah... suddenly got this idea last night while browsing in FB... Had Facebook been born in India how will it be ;) So it triggered n number of imaginations and I decided to blog my thoughts about Facebook in Desi Sshtyle. So here we go...

First of all "Wall" concept is very foreign... We, Indians don't have the habbit of writing anything on the wall ..We just stick posters on the wall you see ;) So we'll change "wall" into "blackboard"... As we are grown up watching teachers writing on blackboard and of-course class-representatives writing talkative names...We have always loved the chance and power to write on it and would have grabbed colourful chalk-pieces to do the same ;) So here we go... Each will be provided with a virtual blackboard where people can chalk their thoughts ;)

Next, the button 'like' needs modification...The word 'like' never represents our feeling exactly! When our friend makes us listen to a new track by A.R. Rahman, we listen and never say like.... We use either superlative degree or a comparative degree... Comparative degree is often used! We say its good but don't you think Illayaraja was better ;) When it comes to sports or movies, when we like a hero or a sportstar, we make them a demiGod or build a temple or atleast put a cutout or banner and do a milk abhishekam for him. So just "like" is never sufficient for us! We need so many such options (super with a 3 symbol in fingers icon/compared to '____' its better/demiGod/milk abhishekam) to bring out our real feel ;) :lol:

"Share" we never easily do that.When there is a message that is meant to be told to all, we'll forget for sure and will never share... But if its a secret, we'll atleast tell it to 1 person instructing that person not to tell anybody ;) The chain continues, if we don't tell anybody our head will burst ;) so the 'share' button should be "shhh...secret" and on clicking on that it should get posted .. oops :oops: I mean chalked on the respective person's blackboard ;)

In India, we are taught not to pass "comments" at anybody right from childhood... So passing comments is considered bad in India! ;) So we'll have to remove the option of comments and include "open to suggestions".. But we only accept selective suggestions and not all... Actually we don't accept any suggestions ;) never mind...we'll put up  this option and disable it later when they suggest :evil: ;)

We'll add a  new button called "Dub in native language" (with a list of languages in India)... We are fond of watching anything and everything in native language... This will be very useful for our directors and actors during remakes ;)

The word "status" will lead to a lot of controversies... As we believe "all are equal" and shouldn't discriminate any section... So, we'll have to think of a suitable replacement for "status message"... In order to qualify as a perfect desi style social network... it has to definitely have an element called Rajini in it for sure ;)  so we'll replace "status message" with "punch dialogue"and a Rajini icon by its side... ;) Ahaan now its 99% desi-fied :lol:

We never "poke" anybody to get attention...In our desi-ssshtyle we'll "smile"...India is known for its variety of smiles as Madhuri Dixit says in an ad... So "smile" will be the best replacement for us :) (We also use a lot of smilies you see ;) )

A button called "Treat?" is a must... We ask treat for every reason that could be found...Even if a friend falls down, we'll ask treat ;)  By clicking this button, you'll send a request to your friend...If he/she accepts he'll be redirected to an e-order page of a restaurant and will be allowed to fix a budget and can pay online...Your friend can order within the budget and finish off his treat without moving out anywhere ;)

A column for "news and politics" can attract all the Indian men and column for "homemade beauty tips", "recipes" , "leading saas-bahu serial's stories" can attract the female crowd... So now this social network is customized for all age-groups!

Finally, the big thing, a suitable name..."Facebook"...Already kids have many books to study in India... Why should we scare them more? lets remove "book" from it..Only "face" remains..It sounds like a scolding! If somebody asks you "what are you browsing?"..when you reply "face" it will definitely sound rude :( So... lets think.... think...think... What are we very much interested about? "Cricket",..."Movies"...Hmmmm... Yes :D Got the answer... We are very curious to know about what's happening at our neighbour's place ... Even when there is a power-cut we'll look at our neighbour's house...If no power there, we'll have a 1000 watt smile else it will be disappointment to the power n ;) So the best name for this site is "Your Neighbour" ... So that we'll always be interested to know whats happening there ! ;) :lol:

"Your Neighbour" will be launched soon... Ideas are welcome before it is launched :) Best ideas will get 50%* off at your nearby tea-stall ;) :lol:

*Offer valid only till stocks last ;)