“I think you do have the potential for people going online and witnessing other student’s behavior, then I think this medium has the potential to spread it beyond the immediate environment,”

said Dr. David Lichter.

This new theory claims that the students suffering from Leroy illness must be unconsciously mimicking symptoms uploaded via videos uploaded on YouTube and Facebook.

Is it really possible that this illness can multiply through mediums?

Dr. David Litcher states,

“Yes that is exactly what I’m saying. It is just an extension of what we’ve seen with previous outbreaks of this kind. It is some kind of unconscious mimicry that is going on in individuals who are stressed and suggestible and vulnerable.”

For those who have a little or no knowledge about LeRoy illness, it is a medical phenomenon predictably called “mass psychogenic outbreak”.  This illness has been found in 12 girls from Le Roy, N.Y. who were found exhibiting uncontrollable verbal eruptions and tics several months ago.

The new study helds social media responsible for the contraction of this new found illness. This mental illness has again raised several question on social media and its over use. Do you think social media is used excessively in the modern world? Should there be a controlled exposure to social media?  We will let you be the judge of that.

This past Wednesday afternoon, Alex Macgillivray, Twitter General Counsel, tweeted stating,

“Folks asked for examples, here’s what a user searching for ‘@WWE’ will be shown on the new @Google.”

The following image should help you understand the gravity of the situation.

Twitter seems to be gravely upset and this has been depicted in one of their statements stating that,

“As we’ve seen time and time again, news breaks first on Twitter, we’re concerned that as a result of Google’s changes, finding this information will be much harder for everyone.”

This seems to be true as Twitter’s information was always on top of the real time search results in Google. Matt Graves, a Twitter spokesperson said,

“For years, people have relied on Google to deliver the most relevant results anytime they wanted to find something on the Internet.Often, they want to know more about world events and breaking news. Twitter has emerged as a vital source of this real-time information, with more than 100 million users sending 250 million Tweets every day on virtually every topic. As we’ve seen time and time again, news breaks first on Twitter; as a result, Twitter accounts and Tweets are often the most relevant results.

We’re concerned that as a result of Google’s changes, finding this information will be much harder for everyone. We think that’s bad for people, publishers, news organizations and Twitter users.”

Google, however, did not take this lying down. (just as we expected). The search giants fired back in a statement, on Wednesday, saying that,

“We are a bit surprised by Twitter’s comments, because they chose not to renew their agreement with us last summer, since then we have observed their rel=nofollow instructions.”

Well the debatable matter here is whether is right and who has the upper hand in this conflict. It is pretty safe to say that individual opinions will definitely differ here, but we all hope that this war should end soon with a good outcome.

The results state that in most parts of North America as well as Europe, have women spending an average of approximately 2 hours a day on social networking sites which is almost 30 percent more than the males in the same area.

While Latin America clocked in the highest number of hours on these sites, the gender break-up of the same had an astonishing 8.2 hours for the females while the males averaged at around 6.9 hours.

The results of the survey have been listed below -

Meanwhile, Twitter is also busy spreading its clientèle count which has shown an impressive 50% rise since the start of the website.

Facebook’s market share has been increased from 0.2% in 2006 to 3.1% in 2010 with an impressive growth rate of 15X in just four years. The single biggest reason for its success has been the fact that it allows advertisers to target users as well as helps them to retain the audience through fan pages.

Twitter, on the other hand, is showing signs of hitting jackpot with its rise in popularity and its users. Although Twitter has already launched its self serve ad platform, it is still in testing phase and once completed can be a revelation in social media for generations to come.

Although, big social media outlets such as AOL, Microsoft and Yahoo still have a massive web presence, they are continuously losing advertisers to social media websites like Twitter and Facebook.In 2006, these giant social media houses commanded a dominating 31.1% of the total market share which has been incredibly reduced to a mere 13.8 in 2010.

His ideas, however, faced flak from a number of sources on social networking giants like Facebook and Twitter. Social net workers criticized the ideas of Indian IT Minister and have shown their dissent by saying “Kapil Sibal is an Idiot”. The examples given by the IT Minister are of the recent case which had pornographic content on a religious website. Although the demands made by Kapil Sibal are supported by various offensive content usage examples, users believe the real reason behind this idea is to chain the criticism faced by political leaders on such websites.

As soon as this news was made public, a number of tweets against this idea showered in on the social networking website, Twitter. Many angry users have raised questions regarding the Government’s involvement on social media platforms.

The company’s representatives have told Sibal that the Government demands are impossible and it is very difficult to monitor every comment posted on the social media platforms. The volume of user generated content from India is very high and thus, the idea cannot be implemented without a proper law.

People have been using social media platforms to voice their opinions since recent times. The new demands raised by Kapil Sibal however are being seen as an attempt to brick the social freedom of speech.

Remember international pop artists, Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga who started a storm on the internet via social media sites like YouTube and Facebook. ‘Baby’ singer, Justin Bieber and ‘Born This Way’ hitmaker Lady Gaga carved their names in history books of YouTube with, 1,991,153,710 and 1,854,608,268 views on their respective channels on the video sharing site.

However recently, a rage stemmed online initially from India and then the world in the form of  Santhosh Pandit, a south-Indian based filmmaker and actor.

His debut project named ‘Krishnanum Radhayum’, which was damned by trade pandits, has become an online phenomenon as well as 8 songs from the film that have above 15 lakh hits with thousands of hits per day. A song called ‘Rathri Shubrathri’ was a viral hit on YouTube with over 550,000 views alone!  On the other hand, Pandit is suddenly become one of the top words searched for on YouTube. Most websites online have resorted to uploading videos of the actor-filmmaker as well as songs from his film.

According to statistics by Google on 12th November 2011, Santhosh Pandit ranked at No. 2 on Google Trends, second only to social networking giant, Facebook. They further state that Google Chrome and YouTube downloads do not stand anywhere near the Malayalam actor. India ranks as only the 5th country to search for Santhosh Pandit as Malayalees residing overseas seem to hold him high on their searches. Qatar ranks first on list of countries searching ofr Santhosh Pandit followed by Bahrain, U.A.E and Kuwait.

This only goes to show the power of social media and how instrumental a role it plays to elevate brands and personalities on a global scale today. The hype that surrounds the film is received not by promotional campaigns but by immense social media activity.

Krishnanum Radhayum released on 21st October 2011, just 5 days prior to one the biggest releases in Bollywood this year, Shah Rukh Khan-starrer, Ra.One.

With the current hype generated and fame received by Krishnanum Radhayum, Pandit has already began work on his next Mollywood project titled ‘Jithu Bhai Enna Chocolate Bhai’ with their songs already hitting YouTube.

Let’s not rule out the future possibility of the most video views on YouTube for a personality to be held by Santhosh Pandit.

A study carried out by PR firm Burson-Marsteller says that 81% of Asian corporate firms have  a strong social media presence. Out of these 84% of the companies use social media channels to improvise their corporate marketing.

The study also went on to show that 31% of these companies use more than three social media channels on a regular basis. Only 19% of the companies do not have any social media for their marketing and communication activities.

According to Bob Pickard, CEO for  Burson-Marsteller,

“The fact that twice as many Asian multinationals are using branded social media channels this year compared to last underlines the opportunity for global corporate communications on digital platforms based in Asia. Companies in Asia are approaching Western levels of adoption but there’s a long way to go when it comes to community engagement in cultures where ‘face’ remains more important than Facebook.”

The study was carried out in the Asia Pacific region covering countries like China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand. 120 companies were surveyed as part of the research.

Blogging has taken a major backseat in Asia with only 9% of the companies having corporate blogs. Microblogging websites like Twitter are no the rise with 28% using them aggressively.

With the rise of social networking websites like Facebook and Twitter, it becomes almost obvious that social media is the next big thing in marketing.

Tandoor Chef has started a charity drive in association with the Deepkiran Foundation, an NGO which provides free education for the under privileged in rural India. In the month of October, the brand will be donating $1 per Like on their Facebook Page to the organization.

Mike Ryan, VP Sales and Marketing for Tandoor Chef said,

“Tandoor Chef is honored to regularly donate to the Deepkiran Foundation, but we want to do even more through this special drive. Deep Foods is proud to support this important foundation and we hope Facebook users everywhere will be proud to rally behind it.”

Tandoor Chef is a brand under Deep Foods. The brands provides deep frozen authentic Indian food. With the help of the campaign, Tandoor Chef plans to carry out a CSR activity during the ongoing festive season.

There campaign has been fairly successful with over 4,000 people liking the Tandoor Chef Facebook Page.

Many brands are trying their best to use innovative social media to get their name forward. This new initiative by Tandoor Chef is sure to win them a lot of fans.

For the upcoming Symbiosis  National Aptitude Programme (SNAP) exam, many aspirants from all around the world will be applying. To help them in preparing for the exams and clearing any doubts they face, the institute has started using various social media channels to interact with the potential students.

Symbiosis has 17 different streams for post graduate studies and thousands of people apply every year to gain admission. The SNAP exam is a common formality for all applicants.

To help the students, Symbiosis has come up with a mobile based website for the SNAP test. The website provides users with content like sample question papers, tips, important datyes etc. Mobile browsing is a rapidly growing concept among the country’s youth and this website has been created to help students on the move.

Apart from this, popular social media websites Facebook and Twitter have also been used. For enhancing communication with the students, a Facebook Page and a Twitter Account has been started. On the pages, regular updates about test dates, trivia questions that may appear in the tests, important links etc are provided.

A YouTube channel has also been created which provides students with AV content which helps them prepare for them exams along with interviews with Institute heads and other experts.

With their initiative, Symbiosis has managed to set an example of the effective way in which social media can be used for organizations.

In order to tackle the major corruption problem, authorities have taken to Youtube. When certain corrupt government officials were accepting bribes for a welfare scheme, they found themselves on the video hosting channel.

The campaign was started by , Rural Development Minister Nitish Mishra, who says that,

“We have uploaded clips of complaints against officials who demand bribes from the poorest of poor in connection with the Indira Awas Yojana”

The Indira Awas Yojana (IYA) is a government conceived scheme that provides monetary support for citizens who live below the poverty line in order to build living facilities for themselves.

Close to one million people were benefited by this scheme. But after repeated complaints of corruption from many people, Mishra decided to do something about the matter.

The government made arrangements to make record videos of complaints by the victims. In this way, they managed to catch many corrupt officers red handed.

Mishra said that the objective of the campaign was to ‘embarrass and expose the officials’. And the campaign has managed to do a fairly good job at it. In just two months of its initiation, 72 officers have been indicted, some of them have even been sent a Show Cause notice by the Government.

Mishra plans to continue aggressively with this campaign. In the past two months, the organization has uploaded close to 600 videos on Youtube.

Indian Government organizations are trying to make their presence felt on the digital space. This new initiative by the Bihar Government is a significant step towards this objective.