State of Social Media in India 2011

Although the world knew about the use of social media by Indians during the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, social media in India is getting popular with each passing day, says a report of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI).

According to the report, the social media tools are being effectively used by a cross section of society in India. The Indian social media scene represents a fast-emerging and influential domain of information exchange involving nearly 60 per cent of the 83 million Internet users in the country (according to TRAI).

Here are the key findings of the report:

1)  Facebook and Orkut continue to dominate the social media in India, with the two together contributing to 90 per cent of the users of social media sites. According to a report by, ViziSense, an online audience measurement service, Facebook has the highest reach, with 22.1 million people accessing Facebook in July, followed by Google's Orkut with 18.5 million.

2)  The popularity of Twitter and some other Indian micro blogging websites is also on a rise.

3)  Driven by the reduced cost of smarphones, courtesy many indigenous mobile makers, and the launch of 3G services, which will enhance the consumer experience; a large number of users also access social media through mobile phones. The number of mobile social network users in India is expected to reach around 72 million by 2014, says the report.

Apart from the positive role played by the social media in the country, like exerting effective pressure on the conventional media to give adequate coverage to the role of lobbying in 2G scam, discussing CWG mismanagement and fraud openly, the social media in India has a worrying trend too, says the report. Social media is being used by separatist outfits from Kashmir, the North East and others. Such outfits have also created profiles and fan pages on social networks; and are taking advantage of their reach to proliferate their messages and indoctrinate the impressionables. --------

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