csmonitor.com :: The changing face of dot.comraderie
By Marie Ewald and Teresa Mendez
Friendster ...can be addictive. A former Friendster's life was overtaken that way. Lured in by Friendster's new format, "Terboted" was soon trolling the site nonstop. "I simply couldn't get enough of this node network that had actual living breathing friends of mine in it," he recounts in an online blog.
Clay Shirky, an adjunct professor of interactive telecommunications at New York University, compares some users' obsessions with collecting Friendsters to a high school popularity contest spun out of control. Once stripped of real-world restrictions like time and space, he explains, participation in online communities can "quickly accelerate beyond the realm of human behavior."
But unlike a word processor, social software constantly adapts to its users, professor Shirky says. A few entrepreneurial Friendsters have even taken to auctioning their networks on eBay, guaranteeing the buyer an instant social circle.
Tribe is trying to reconcile the technology with the sociology. Unlike Friendster's, Tribe's users can adjust the size of the community they're looking through, so someone looking for a loan can restrict the search to close friends, and someone searching for a couch could hunt through their extended network...
The Financial Express :: Economic Diplomacy Post-Cancun
...We need to develop a bit of a give-and-take approach in our negotiations with major countries rather than get locked into rigid ideological positions that could easily happen if India is posited into leadership role in the new-found G-21.
Secondly, we must look for expansion of regional trade, as most other countries are doing. India is held back in this by the hostility of Pakistan and Bangladesh. We should, as a first step, unilaterally free trade with our neighbouring countries (with appropriate rules of origin put in place), so that it would put pressure on the neighbours to reciprocate. In any case, it would help to create trading and manufacturing interest groups that should help to undermine political hostility to India in those countries.
Thirdly, we should be more proactive in identifying areas where foreign investment can be brought into the country without damaging our national interest. A litmus test is whether it is adding to our export capacity in knowledge-based industries, with strong vertical downstream linkages in the Indian economy. Investments of this kind cannot be easily shifted abroad, as they are human-capital based. By making such investments, other nations will acquire a strong interest in the security of India, and the prosperity of this country.
Fourthly, we should actively seek out trade and technological collaboration opportunities with other major Third World countries, such as China, South Africa, Egypt and Brazil. India is already building a reputation for knowledge based industries - information technology and pharmaceuticals. We should build on this reputation...
K-Collector