In India, corporate sector employees productivity is Killed by 12.5% in surfing social networking sites like Facebook, Orkut etc. during the office hours says ASSOCHAM's (Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry) Social Development Foundation (ASDF) survey. Morever ASSOCHAM survey  in a press release says - Almost each day, an average corporate employee spends an hour, gluing to various social networking sites such as Orkut, Facebook, Myspace, Linkdein etc. for 'romancing' or otherwise drive some satisfaction out of it...with this average corporate employee’s each day working is reduced by an hour from 8 hours to 7 hours. Young professionals join the social networking sites the most. It also reveals that 93% of youngsters are aware of social networking sites. Orkut and Facebook are found to be the most popular online destinations among survey respondents. 73% of aged 45-58 spend over an hour online daily to use online sources to access news. On the other on same note and on same day an interesting reports by CII (Confederation of Indian Industries) says that growth momentum of the services sector in India has increased during April–October 2009, compared to the same period during 2008. If one has to go by ASSOCHAM than productivity has already been ...

Recently a research has been conducted by TrendStream, who publishes the Global Web Index and the research is based on interviews with 32,000 Internet users in 16 countries including India. The research outputs a visualization that shows the different kind activities performed by online users in major countries across he globe called - Global Map of Social Web Involvement. Interestingly the reports also shows some very positive aspects of India's online activities such as writing blogs, using micr-blogging services, uploading videos and photos where it leads most countries (user volume in millions) like UK, Germany, Australia, Italy, France, Germany and Japan. Moreover, when it comes to percentage of total online users - More people in India write their own blogs and use Micro-blogging services in India than US. The report is extremely useful for all those who are on verge of starting any internet or web startups in India or any countries listed in this report or planning to have one, with all these social web involvement matrix one can plan out a specific traits, features in their websites, portals or internet services to take advantage of what people are more prone to do with doing activities more than others. Global Map of ...

Dhingana, a social networking portal around musical entertainment has added a Community IM within its portal similar to facebook, visible at bottom. This feature will allow users to chat in real time with their friends on Dhingana. Apparently, its a first Indian social platform to launch the community IM feature in first week of May in partnership with Meebo. Apart from chatting with other users on Dhingana, the Community IM feature also allows users to chat with all their friends from a variety of other networks like Yahoo!, Gmail, AOL, Facebook, Twitter, Hotmail etc. Users can also share music albums, songs, playlists, videos with their friends with just 2 clicks using the nice built in "share" feature. Meebo with its Community IM! Meebo is partnering with leading online communities such as Piczo, Flixter and yaari.com to deliver free, integrated, Web-based instant messaging (IM) to users. Meebo Community IM is designed to facilitate live interaction and real-time conversations between members of online communities such as social media, gaming, and blog networks. Although when I tried it personally over Firefox/ Vista, I had problem in signing in and status shows as offline. I believe though that its quite good mixture of IM along with music, ...

Facebook seems to eying Indian social networking arena as the company which is second largest Social networking site in India launched in 5 Indian regional languages - Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Punjabi as Hindi is already available in facebook, making total of 6 Indian languages for Indian online audience. Facebook has got substantial growth in user base in India in short span of time infact largest gaining social network in India in terms of user base in year 2008. The all 6 languages availability would also give boost to facebook apps in these languages and also target more rural audience in India.

According to comScore, a leading web analytic firm Social networking is growing strongly in India in year 2008 with 51% growth in social networking crowd with top players being - Orkut, facebook and only Indian networking portal among top 3 is BharatStudents.com. In year of 2008 a load of other social network has saw a incredible growth in traffic in terms of unique visitors top being - Facebook, Hi5 and MySpace sites. However, Orkut remained the favorite in India. The comScore report also predicted that Social Networking in India will continue to provide space for other players as well provided they have right blend of both a strong brand and cultural relevance. Noticeably, the Indian players in the list have to do some act of redemption or simply rework their portals as apparent in the report social networks made in India such as ibibo.com, BigAdda.com are showing negative change in visitors attention and to my belief creating hype more that what one possess will do nothing but annoy users. The difference in majority of Indian startups are very much visible, though I am reluctant discussing it as seen in comments of IndianWeb2.com a lot of people have been offended.

Social networking which is integral part of web 2.0 wave, as users have much more participation level in this domain along with networking that lure them more than anything. When talking about this, names that appears in anyone's' mind are Facebook, Orkut or MySpace leaders in social networking and all of them have big names, brand and most importantly money to pay to their developers, visualizers etc. however today one can find plenty of scripts to make their own facebook clones or myspace kinda network. In India Agriya Infoway a chennai based web solution company provide ready made social network software called Kootali with a price tag of $247 and contains all the features you would expect in a professional social network package, friends, albums, sending messages, groups, events and more. Interestingly the company also provides other scripts as well such as social bookmarking script, video sharing software. In a similar fashion another chennai based company i-netsolution provide commercial PHP based Orkut Clone with similar layout/ look-n-feel as Orkut is having along with admin interface so any amateur HTML developer can run it likewise to blogging software, watch the user view of same here. iScripts.com is providing an another PHP based open source ...

A new video on block just showcasing Top 25 Web companies in Indian internet realm, the video has been prepared by AppAppeal, a web based applications review website. If one has to take my opinion the companies lined up in video are very much close to the top web companies in India.

BPOSutra.com, a networking portal for BPO People has been launched in Beta though open only for invitees also BPOSutra.com has been in Alpha mode since February this year. This vertical social networking portal is launched by e-Sutra Chronicles Pvt. Ltd, a Career and Lifestyle enablement company offering platforms and services by Industry verticals. In a Press Release apparently sent to IndianWeb2, it describes itself in a competitive way, as - BPO Sutra is India’s very own networking portal from Bangalore. The difference from Orkut, Facebook, Big Adda, Linked-in, etc being this portal caters only to the needs of more than 7 Lakh people directly employed in the BPO industry. In addition to networking and media sharing, the portal provides some cool applications that will enhance the users’ career, lifestyle and profession. Please reply for any further information. Noticeably its not first time that a BPO targeted social networking portal has been launched and thats too in India, in a similar format BPO-Voice, a networking portal targeted to BPO related crowd has been launched that we reviewed in July this year. BPO Sutra is a portal for Career help, Mentoring, Professional networking and Lifestyle platform for the BPO People. The portal offers unique and user-aware ...

Blue Lion Mobile, a Cologne-based company has officially offered it mobile 2.0 product 'Qeep', a social network for mobile phones in India, which would allow Indian users to stay connected with their friends, make new friends and do all such social networking activities on their Mobile handsets by downloading the application qeep on to their mobile phones. Qeep is a Java based App and can be downloaded for free at www.qeep.net or via WAP portal at wap.qeep.net. Any internet-ready mobile phone that supports Java MIDP 2.0 is qeep-compatible. Qeep offers host of interactive features like private messaging, photo-blogging with unlimited storage space, live multi-player gaming, sound attacks and QMS, a special kind of text message designed for qeep and costs a lot less than an SMS. The beta-version of the qeep mobile community was launched in December 2006 and have a user base of over 3,00,000 users fronm around 160 countries.

Fotoflock.com has launched today as India’s first comprehensive website exclusively for the Indian photographic community by Epson in Bangalore. Fotoflock is conceived as a platform for anyone who is interested in photography in India to gather. Be it the amateur photographer, professional photographer, enthusiast, photo studio or anyone. The portal can be described as being for 'all things photography' - anything and everything about photography for Indians who are passionate about the craft, the science, or even the business. There will be an exhaustive collection of articles, news, interviews, forums, tips & tricks, contests, event listings, photographer profiles, resources and much more. There’s something for everyone with an interest in photography. Perhaps one of the most exciting features is the interactive photo Gallery for registered users to create a personal portfolio, showcase their work and critique the work of their peers. The interactive Forum allows not only exchanges on displayed work but also sharing of experiences and expertise on a regular, open basis. The site is also designed to allow content to be generated by its users, giving it a true open-community structure. Apart from the latest advancements and news, the site will also showcase exclusive interviews with some of the luminaries of ...