When they are not facing the camera, a bunch of Bollywood men and women including Aamir Khan and Priyanka Chopra stuff their stockings, write sticky notes, bitch-slap and throw food on their friends on a popular social networking website called Facebook.
Primarily focused on high school to college students, the social network on the web has now caught the imagination of our reasonably computer literate filmy janta. For starters, Facebook was founded by former Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg as part of his hobby projects. Later, when it was well received by fellow students, the website was formally launched in February 2004. The core service is free and has now users across all English-speaking countries.
Most of our actors have graduated from the humble social network Orkut to Facebook. While on Orkut most of them complained about lack of privacy, as all Orkut users have access to profiles and scrapbooks of their fellow users. As a result they faced a deluge of scraps (or messages) from fans and sceptics alike. Says Gul Panag, "When I was on Orkut a friend recommended Facebook as it is a relatively private site where only listed friends can access your profile details." However, Gul is yet to upload pictures on her website, as she is not yet acquainted with the functions, "I'm not too familiar with the website and there are just too many application tools."
However, filmmaker Kunal Kohli feels that Facebook is one of the most user-friendly websites. Kohli was intrigued when assistant directors at his office kept raving and ranting about the website every morning. Kohli, who is just a month old on Facebook says, "All my assistant directors were on it. I was too curious and wanted to open an account. I got up and about on the website in no time. My usage level is approaching the addiction stage."
For people like Kohli, Facebook is almost a personal website as users post their articles, pictures, videos, reading list, movie guide and music album on the website. Says Kohli, "Ever since I have logged on to Facebook people have stopped sending emails. They prefer posting messages on my wall. For me it is as good as my personal website."
Nevertheless, one can't ignore the networking side to it. Long lost friends and acquaintances have surfaced for many users. Gul Panag, who had given up hopes on finding her high school best friend, says: "The other day, I found my long lost high school, Brit friend. We went to the International School of Lusaka in Zambia."
Homi Adajania (of Being Cyrus fame), however, argues that it's more of a time-killing exercise (of course, if you have too much to spare). He says, "It's pure time pass. I check it whenever I'm bored." He further adds, "But I have found a lot of old Armenian rugby players who I haven't met for over 15 years on the website."
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