Real,virtually

When Orkut happened to the world,an entire generation went on warpath trying to ‘add’ half the world to his/her friend list. Soon,a section,miffed by the grammatical disaster that the site was,turned to Facebook hoping that the ‘franship’ requests would stop following them even in their dreams. Then Twitter made every mundane minute of your life a thing to talk about. However,while we were tweeting and scrapping away,networking was just getting a little more exclusive,focused and specialised even. Samik Biswas,a Hyderabad-based engineer working with Google,logs on to Soundpedia,an internet radio and music community website. “Instead of randomly adding people,checking out silly dating applications,one can actually interact with people with similar interests and choices. You are able to make sensible conversations with virtual friends,” says Biswas,about http://www.soundpedia.com. The site allows its users to create playlists,browse through music among other things. Apart from that users can make friends,share their playlists with others,go through others’ choices and listen to music of their choice. And sites like Shelfari,Palagea,Indiapepal,Deviantart,Protagonize etc are catering to a growing population of networkers in the country who would want to virtually bond with people with similar interests,passion and profession.

Shelfari,a site aimed at booklovers allows you to build your virtual bookshelf,write reviews of books,read what others have to say about different books. No wonder,people who are otherwise averse to social networking have found an engagement of sorts. “Members often ask for suggestions,recommendations and opinions regarding particular books which they may have seen on your ‘shelf’. It usually makes for intellectually stimulating conversations. And when you add friends,you add them not because they have a dishy display picture but because you are almost in a position to see that they have some choices similar to yours,” says Ceiloni Sengupta,a teacher and a Shelfari addict.

And when it’s not interests,it’s talent on display that draws people to sites like these. Amrita Chowdhury,a Mumbai-based architect swears by http://www.deviantart.com. “The talent on display is mindboggling. And it’s all talent and no fooling around. Even the most famous graphic designers have accounts on the site under pseudonyms. Members who have been around for some time would know,” says Chowdhury,adding that it’s a great platform to display your talent and get to know immensely creative people who might end up collaborating professionally.

Similarly,while Indiapepal lets you talk about trying out new things,Palagea lets you learn languages while you network and Protagonize lets you flex your quill,encouraging you to write stories,read and add to others’ works and get to know people with a penchant for the written word.

Sahil Batra,who owns a Mumbai-based music label,finds it more sensible to promote his releases on sites like http://www.isratrance.com,than on Facebook or Orkut. “After all it has a forum dedicated to just people doing music and interested in the same sort of music. So it’s not like beating about the bush,” says Batra,who has accounts on FB and MySpace.

It’s not that Facebook’s got competition from them yet,but some netizens have sure got choosy. And the numbers are just swelling!