Mediaboss Marketing

Ashwathi Krishnan, a 23-year-old fashion designer, was introduced to Hello, Orkut Buyukkokten's second social networking venture, through a few friends over drinks on a weekend in May.

Soon enough, she found herself spending over 20 minutes a day on the app, trying out different personalities from Bollywood to music and science fiction trivia.

It's nice because it's very specific to particular interests and you can keep changing those interests to discover new things and different people, said Krishnan. I think once the user base in India picks up, I would probably be able to form an online fashion community on Hello, whom I could even interact with offline.

Within two weeks of the platform's beta launch in India, Hello has nearly 10,000 app users in the country.

Users can choose from a host of personas such as photographer, beer lover, runner, artist, cat owner and selfie lover. The most common ones are traveller, foodie, cat lover, dog lover and coffee lover, said Buyukkokten in a video interaction with ET.

Users can also create communities, join one or simply browse through trending communities on the app. To measure and increase user engagement, the app has a fair amount of gamification.

This includes karma points, where each heart on a post adds to a milestone bar. Users can also buy and spend virtual Hello coins to post anonymously , besides finding hidden personality tests.

Various social networking sites including Orkut, hi5.com, Bharatstudent.com and Myspace have floundered in the past decade as Facebook emerged as a social media giant. According to Buyukkokten, however, while Facebook acts as a digital directory to all the people you have met in life - schoolmates, neighbours, relatives- Hello aims to serve a different purpose.

Our topology goes beyond the broadcast model and takes into account not just your friends and people you follow, but also your interests, location and personality , said Buyukkokten.Connecting and pursuing our passions are two fundamental human needs and Hello fosters connections around passions.

In India, the response has been great, he said. We are looking to add chai lovers besides the existing ones we have, which are Bollywood fan, spiritualist persona and cricket fan, and will also launch in Hindi during the coming months.

Shortly after Buyukkokten left Google in March 2014 - Orkut was shuttered in September that year - he began working on Hello with a team of 15 people who are based out of San Francisco and Mountain View, California. Google is one of the main investors in Hello.

The app, which targets users largely in the 18-30 age group, launched in Brazil last year and the beta version is available in England, Canada, France, Spain, Australia and Ireland.

We are looking at international markets first and not the US at the moment. We are seeing very high engagement. The number of minutes people spend on the app on an average in a month is 300-400 minutes. That's higher than Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat; many platforms except Facebook, said Buyukkokten.

In India, 80% of the users are Android users and about 20% are on Apple's iOS. The app, which launched in September 2016, has more than 300,000 users globally, a majority of them in Brazil. The South American country was the largest market for the Orkut social network as well, followed by India.

According to Anand Lunia, partner at India Quotient and an investor in Indian social networking app ShareChat, there is room for newer social networking apps although the chances of them flourishing are unlikely to be higher than 1%.

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Orkut Buyukkokten: Orkut Buyukkokten's social networking venture ... - ETtech.com

REDWOOD SHORES, Calif., June 2, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Most of us rely on popular social media platforms for our social connectivity and well-being. These platforms do a great job in connecting us with our friends, relatives, and acquaintances. In fact, the level of connectivity they provide is so high that many of us unknowingly attain a level of hyper-connectivity that blinds us from interacting with everyone else who's not already in our social network.

People in our immediate surroundings share common experiences with us. Whether its those that are waiting for the same train as you, the thousands of fellow spectators that are watching the same football game at a stadium with you, or everyone staying in the same hotel as you you have more in common, and thus more reasons to interact, with people in your immediate vicinity than you realize. Unfortunately, most of these people are not already in your social network and therefore, opportunities to interact with them are usually lost.

Social media platforms must evolve to become context-aware. Letting you interact with people sharing common experiences near your current physical location is one form of context-aware social networking.

Locye, a fast growing social media platform that formally launched at last week's LaunchCMU an event showcasing Carnegie Mellon University startups held at the Oracle Conference Center, offers just that. It lets you post content that's visible to people near your current physical location and see posts made by others near you. You can post anonymously or with your identity as well as like, dislike, comment, and report posts. It also gives you the option of posting your content forever or having it disappear after a day.

Locye goes a step further by letting users observe social activity at real-time hotspots and places of interest worldwide. It computes hotspots by scanning the entire planet once every couple of minutes and applying artificial intelligence to identify areas that are likely to contain newsworthy content minus the typical chatter that accompanies trending hashtags. As a result, thousands of Locye users across four continents are quickly recognizing it as an authentic source of eyewitness accounts and even breaking news.

Strong interest of the venture capital community in context-aware social networking further signifies its growing importance. For example, bootstrapped startup Locye has already received offers to invest from investors like Jaguar Land Rover, The Cove Fund, Furuya & Co., and several Silicon Valley angels.

Travelers, citizen journalists, college students, professionals, community residents, and spectators among others are fast realizing the importance of context-aware social media platforms and this trend is expected to grow exponentially in the future.

Locye on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/locye/id1181176026

Locye on Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.locye.android

Media Contact:

Zainub Mustehsan

650-400-7364

162415@email4pr.com

To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/why-context-aware-social-networking-is-the-future-300467748.html

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Why Context-aware Social Networking Is The Future? - PR Newswire - PR Newswire (press release)

BHOPAL: State toppers of the CBSE Class 12, results of which were announced on Sunday, firmly believe that social networking is a great distration and students should keep away from them. For example, state topper Bhavesh has kept himself aloof from such sites and has not even opened an account on Facebook.

Talking about social networking, the toppers feel that it is a waste of time. "What is the use of Facebook I have failed to understand? I have no FB account and still I have a lot of friends and social life is like any other student," said Bhavesh. He prefers to spend time talking with friends on phone and playing different sports.

Bhavesh admits that keeping away from social networking is one of the main reasons for scoring good marks in the CBSE . "I do not know how others can maintain a balance between social networking and studies. Personally, I think social networking is just a distraction," said Bhavesh.

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CBSE 12th result 2017: Keep off social networking, say state toppers ... - Times of India

The Hindu

Predators on the prowl on social networking sites - The Hindu The Hindu Instances of unsuspecting girls falling prey to the designs of strangers they meet online are on the rise in A.P.. and more »

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Predators on the prowl on social networking sites - The Hindu - The Hindu

SRINAGAR:The Jammu and Kashmir Government has lifted ban on social networking sites, including Facebook and Twitter, in Kashmir valley.

Official sources here today said that the ban on social networking sites has not been extended in Kashmir.

The ban on social media sites in Kashmir was imposed for a month in view of sprung in protests by students, triggered by a security force raid on Degree College Pulwama on April 15, when over 50 students, including girls, were injured in the clashes in educational institute.

The Home department, headed by Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti had imposed the ban till May 26, citing that these social networking sites were being misused by anti-national and anti-social elements to create law and order disturbances in Kashmir.

However, the ban drew criticism from intellectuals within the country, besides global organisations, including the United Nations.

The UN had on May 11 urged the Centre to withdraw the ban on internet services and reinstate freedom of speech in the valley.

The State Government last month banned 22 social networking sites, including Facebook and WhatsApp.

However, the banned sites were accessible on all mobile networks through Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) and on state-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) broadband service. (AGENCIES)

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Ban on social networking sites lifted in Kashmir after a month - Daily Excelsior