Young India says stylish 'Jai Ho': Orkut Zeitgeist

BANGALORE, INDIA: Are you a movie buff, or a cricket freak? Are you a fan of good foods, or is it that you are more concerned about your health? Whatever it may be there are enough platforms for you in many of the social networking sites, which have becomes part of the modern life. And it is in the backdrop of such trends that today Google India announced its first ever Orkut Zeitgeist in India.

Zeitgeist means the "spirit of the times". The survey looks at how people are using Orkut communities to forge bonds, to express themselves, to come together around causes and topics that excite them or simply to share their creative pursuits with a wider audience.

Google said it looked at millions of communities and usage trends to finally arrive at the ten most popular communities, which is toped by "StYlIsH PeOpLe", followed by "India", "Chocolate", and "MTV & still more MTV!"

The other toppers are: "TCS 2009 Batch..........!!!!!!", "Tom and Jerry – Cartoon", "Boys VS Girls (Who Is d Best?)", "India Stock Market (BSE NSE)", "Tamil Cinema", "I hate to wake up early", "Friends\""

The trends are based on an 'anonymised' and aggregated study of the behavior of Indian users over the past seven days, said a press release. The analysis was repeated over several seven day periods, to confirm the accuracy of results and to rule out episodic variations, it added.

According to Google, this shows that while young India remains patriotic, being 'stylish' is a growing priority too! It also said the stock market is growing in appeal for the young traders while football catches up with cricket. And, interestingly, Bollywood seems to be losing to Tollywood. Another aspect is the the gender discrimination is weakening as both men and women actively engage in discussions.

Some of the interesting findings:

Everyone loves to 'chat' but 'photo' sharing and comments are the new fad.

Photo uploads are the new 'scraps': while millions of scraps are exchanged everyday, photo uploads have increased many fold

Rahul and Neha are the most popular names on Orkut

Women and Men meet half way for 'chats’. Women care more for horoscopes

Marketers are using a combination of communities, ads and apps to keep their audiences engaged. Film "Love Aajkal" drives over 200 communities and 100000 users.

“Orkut is the number one web property in India with over 17 million active users that comprise 48 per cent of India’s online population. Therefore it is no surprise when everyone refers to Orkut to comprehend the dominant trends in the Indian way of life,” said Rahul Kulkarni, product manager, Google India.

“While different people find different things to do on the web, the list of the top Orkut communities (based on popularity) is the best representation of the unique ways in which Indian users are mining the Internet and social networks,” he added.

Is it that patriotism is also becoming a fad? It is up to you to give an answer.