Being an open social media platform, Twitter generally attracts several controversies very often, and it happens due to the nature of the platform. The popular social media platform allows users to post about everything except images or videos depicting graphic violence, hate-group imagery and pornography. Though Twitter’s latest policy on pornography permits users with verified accounts to share explicit content within their tweets by marking it “this media is sensitive.”
Also, in the last couple of years, we have witnessed many controversial tweets from all around the world, be it on #blacklivesmatter or #metoo movement and in the case of our country, most of these tweets are coming from a few celebrities and stand up comedians who tweeted their blunt views on patriotism or government strategies, but we’re not going to focus more on controversial tweets because, over the years, Twitter has blessed us with a few good tweets too and before walking into 2022, let’s take a look at the positive side of the platform.
Barack Obama
"No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin or his background or his religion…" pic.twitter.com/InZ58zkoAm
Let’s begin with the tweet of Barack Obama, who’s a two-term President of the United States and the most followed individual currently on Twitter with over 130 million followers. The ex-president mostly tweets about his activities and work related to his Obama Foundation, but the tweet that went viral and caught everyone’s eyes was “No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin or his background or his religion…”
The tweet, which quotes a line from Nelson Mandela’s autobiography “Long Walk to Freedom”, came after the violence in Charlottesville where a 32-year-old woman was killed, and 19 others were injured when a man allegedly accelerated his car into a crowd of counter-protesters. The tweet stayed on the top as the most-liked tweet until Chadwick Boseman’s family disclosed the news of his demise with the tweet from his account.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk is known for his contradictory work, theories, tweets and comments. When coronavirus was at its peak in foreign countries like the United States, United Kingdom and China, a tweet from Elon Musk caught everyone’s attention. In a tweet, the SpaceX founder said, “The coronavirus panic is dumb,” even though he doesn’t have a background in medicine or virology. The tweet didn’t age well as globally coronavirus infections crossed over 27.5Cr while killing over 53.5L people and counting.
Breaking the news of Osama bin Laden’s Death
So I'm told by a reputable person they have killed Osama Bin Laden. Hot damn.
One of the reasons behind Twitter getting popular after 2010 was its news breaking culture. The platform has unveiled a number of top news’ through its wide base of users, and one of them was the news of Osama bin Laden’s death which came out from a tweet of Keith Urbahn, a former chief of staff to defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Before this tweet, one more tweet provided a hint of the news, and it came from a Pakistan-based IT consultant, Sohaib Athar, which reads, “Helicopter hovering above Abbottabad at 1 AM is a rare event”.
#BlackLivesMatter
“Racism isn’t getting worse, it’s getting filmed” – Will Smith
The hashtags #BlackLivesMatter first came into the limelight during 2013 as the movement to curb police violence gained steam but arose like a spaceship missile during May 2020, when George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, was murdered in the Powderhorn Park. The protest was against incidents of police brutality and all racially motivated violence against black people.
While protesting physically, the protestors also started using the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter on social media platforms, especially on Twitter, to gain the world’s attention and support. Since 2013, more than 41 million tweets have been tagged with #BlackLivesMatter, but one of the tweets that went viral during this phase was from Femi Koleoso, and it mentions a quote from Will Smith, “Racism isn’t getting worse, it’s getting filmed.”
If you want to win at social media, you have to focus on creative marketing as people might usually don’t care about the brand, but if you do the marketing job well, they’ll surely remember your brand and then eventually end up having it. One such great marketing tweet came during a Super Bowl XLVII in 2013 when a surprise blackout delayed the game of the National Football League for 34 minutes. A quick-moving tweet from Oreo reads, Power out? No problem, followed by an image that shows a text, “you can still dunk in the dark.”
The iconic bird logo of the social media platform Twitter is named Larry as a tribute to NBA player Larry Bird, who played for the Boston Celtics, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone’s home-state team.
In 2009, Evan Williams and Biz Stone were listed in Time’s 100 most influential people in the world, even before Jack Dorsey.
As of January 2022, the most-liked tweethas over 7.2 million likes, and it was tweeted from the late American actor Chadwick Boseman’s account by his family, informing the world about his demise.
Only the South Korean band BTS has more than three most-liked tweets in the top 30. The band has 21 tweets in the list of top 30 most-liked tweets.
Twitter is blocked in China because Chinese authorities prefer their homegrown social networks as they can have complete control over them, which Twitter doesn’t permit.
Justin Bieber is the most followed celebrity on Twitter with over 114m followers, only behind former United States President Barack Obama.
Twitter has enough money in the bank to survive approximately 412 years.
The official Twitter account of @Sweden is given to a random Swedish citizen every week to manage with the expressed goal to manifest Swedish diversity and progressiveness.
Twitter first made a profit in the fourth quarter of 2017, earning $91m (£65m).
Out of 1.3 billion Twitter accounts, over 391 million accounts have no followers at all.
Taylor Swift is the most influential person on Twitter, followed by India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modiand Katy Perry.
The Face with Tears of Joy emoji “😂” is the most popular emoji on Twitter.
The hashtag was first brought to Twitter on 23rd August 2007. Chris Messina introduced it in order to filter the tweets and help the existing users connect with a particular theme.
The Twitter logo consists of overlaying 15 different symmetrical circles, which signifies giving everyone a voice.
Out of all the Americans on Twitter, 71% use the platform only to read the news, and 42% use the platform to discuss politics.
The statistical data shows over 75% of emojis tweeted on Twitter are positive, and the number increases by about 2% during Friday and Saturday.
Let’s get one thing straight; We are part of a generation whose entire life is dedicated to social media, so much so that it is now hard to differentiate between the reel and the real.
It was Facebook that changed the game of how we interact with random people on the Internet. It put everybody in a simulation where people could upload their pictures and talk to each other without being physically present.
It was on this turn where people started disassociating themselves from reality. The beginning! I am actually quite appreciative of the vision and deft execution. Still, we cannot dismiss the fact that it puts everyone in a cocoon where everyone would be too discomforted and afraid to just come out of it over time.
Zuckerberg’s social juggernaut ingrained itself into the daily lives of the end-users in a way that its contemporaries like Twitter or MySpace could only imagine.
Social networking is a grey space, so we would be differentiating between the blacks and the whites. Let’s first know the advantages.
Pros of Social Media Networking
Adopted a new puppy? Wedding announcement? Birth announcement? Started dating? Graduated? Got yourself into your dream college? Just slap an Instagram post, and we all know in a second that you made it.
Another thing that social media has done well is that it has made almost everyone inclusive. Social Media has made youngsters more aware and vocal about the inequalities and injustices that surround our society. This generation refuses to accept the stereotypes and gender norms that have been served to us for ages. Since everyone can now put their opinions on a single or different platform, it gives people the confidence to be comfortable in their skin and identity.
It got convenient for people of different colours or sexuality to voice their experiences through articles or videos and gather an entire community to stand with them during those tough times. Before the introduction of social media, people would pretty much live in the closet and would be disdained for their unwanted or ‘alien’ preferences. Not saying that we are absolutely over those demons, but we have come a long way in taming them.
Social media platforms such as YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat have allowed a variety of content to be shared by people. There is literally everything on Youtube. The other day I came across a video where a person was teaching his viewers’ how to pick up a chair.’ YES! How to pick up a chair! I mean, pretty sweet and brave of him to share his talent, but this gives you enough idea why you would never run short on content with these sharing platforms around.
Social media makes our lives less dramatic if we think about it. Imagine meeting your childhood friend in your late 30s. You will be overwhelmed with all sorts of emotions seeing your friend after so long. Facebook, along with other social platforms, reduced that gap superlatively. It can be your childhood friend, college roommates who drifted away, former teachers who served as inspirations; they are all just one search away, and we are much better updated about their lives than we would have been without such platforms. Social media platforms allow us to keep people close to us that we would instead not call at any given time of the day.
Another reason why social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram are useful tools in today’s era is that they keep people more aware politically. With millions of websites and pages, it is nearly impossible for a politician to commit a crime or say something objectionable and get away with it without having it blogged or shared in video format.
Earlier, people would buy anything and everything that the market offered them. We presently live in a hyper-competitive market. There are so many brands offering the same set of products that it’s hard to figure out what would be the best choice for yourself. Having a platform has enabled people to voice their opinions about these brands, positively or negatively, which has compelled these brands to be more customer-centric rather than inclining more towards profits. Word-of-mouth spreads like wildfire on social media!
Cons of Social Media Networking
There are always two sides to every story. One can not go down the positive lane for long without having some thorns along the way. And when the road is so big, there are more chances of unrest. We listed some positive aspects of social media. Here are some of the negative pointers that this generation has to go through due to excessive networking.
We just talked about how we are now connected with people that we haven’t seen in ages; some school or college friends, a few teachers that we dearly admire and so on. But have you ever thought about how negatively this impacts your conversations?
Suppose you have not seen your friend for over ten years, but you have every update of his daily life through Facebook. One fine day when everyone decides to have a reunion, you would stand around and say, ‘So how did the doctor’s appointment go yesterday?’ The point is, you wouldn’t feel the same emotions and would probably lack honest conversations because you are quite used to his virtual presence.
Social media makes you sad. No, this is not something that I ‘believe’, rather it has been reported lately. The latest study by the Wall Street Journal suggested that Instagram negatively impacts mental health, body image, and more for teenagers. Thirty per cent of teen girls said that when they felt bad about their bodies, Instagram made them feel worse. Comparisons on Instagram can change how young women view and describe themselves.
The reason behind this is the process that we have been following for a long time and what has been fed to us by these platforms as a form of ‘entertainment.’ I came across a trend on Instagram a few days back, which involved people applying a filter on their faces that read, ‘This filter shows what your face would look like if it was perfect.’ And people have been using that like there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. If you let a filter decide the ‘perfect’ for you, then it is understandable why teens doubt their beauty.
We have to understand that everyone on these social platforms posts the best side of themselves, and if they feel they don’t have that, they take the help of filters. I wouldn’t ever put up a picture of myself in dreadful clothes munching on some food like it’s my last supper, but it is much likely for me to post in a fine dine that I might regret later for spending too many bucks. These ‘good-time’ pictures impel a viewer to consider his life as an absolute train-wreck.
Allow me to make myself a little more clear. I am nowhere suggesting that one should not live their life to the fullest or do a little brag about having a lovely time. I can’t be a judge of that. But I feel that one should understand very clearly that people create a blanket on social media and hide their demons under them. The bottom line is, we all have our demons.
Now let’s hit the political part of social networking sites. People have indeed been more aware of their leaders since almost everything is on the Internet now. But do you believe what you see? Is there a possibility that you have been deceived all along? A recent report suggests so. Facebook has been under a lot of scrutinies for pushing hate speeches on its platform and not adequately curbing the misinformation and inflammatory posts.
Social media channels as big as Facebook have the potential to control what people see on their walls through well-structured algorithms. You would never know if something you see is legit or if false information is being fed to you. This leads to violence and hate between communities, races, etc., often benefitting the politicians and leaders in power.
Another snag of using social media too much is the decreasing attention span of youngsters. We are so used to swiping content continuously that anything which needs time and attention gets skipped. What was the last time you read a whole newspaper? Did you skip a big chunk of this article too? If the answer is yes, you now know why!
After what seems like an eternity, Exhibit hosted Exhibit Tech Awards 8.0 at Sofitel, BKC, Mumbai, on 16th December 2021. We started with selecting our nominations over two months ago. Our office is filled with ringing phones and endless mail trails—technology brands connected with our entire team to nominate their best products across all the categories.
When we spread the word on social media, we were suggested by many tech brands and their products by our trusted followers. The criteria were simple; the product should be available on sale in 2021 and ideally should be launched in the same year, matching our award categories. The pandemic had many brands slowing their launches last year, and thus some categories saw little to no launches in the past year. We aren’t the government, and hence we bent some rules to allow these products to be nominated in their respective categories.
Before we knew it, our team sorted products bombarding our office premises. From TWS earbuds to 85-inch televisions, the mix of products never fails to get our dopamine flowing. This is the eighth time we are hosting Tech Awards, but every time feels like the first time. Thanks to technology changing its pace in an ever-changing tech world. Newer products, newer brands and many unique products were just the start of the process.
A week of what seemed like a decade went by sorting the products that met our criteria. Finally, our nominations were in place, and the rest of the products were returned to their respective brands. Some categories like wearables and TWS earbuds had more entries than we anticipated. We had the best of our techies listen to the earbuds, test the wearables, and further shortlist the ones worth being the best of the rest.
Our web, social media, editors and marketing team came together as a total unit to make these nominations live on our website. We spread the word through many posts on social media, articles on the web and several emails to the respective brands. Exhibit.tech hosted a dedicated page for all the nominations, with the ability to vote for all our visitors.
The rules were simple, sign up and vote. Voters were restricted to vote only once through each IP, email ID and phone number. We wanted the voting process to be as fair as possible. And, so it was. Although some companies did opt to share the voting links among their employees and tried to increase their probability, voters across the globe are a number hard to beat. We saw an overwhelming response, and our servers were clogged for a few minutes. Votings were kept live till 10th December 2021. We witnessed IPs from across the globe voting across categories.
While the people of this world were busy voting their preferred products under each category, we had the best of professionals joining our jury panel. Meet our Jury – (Jury team and a few lines about each Eg. Arun Prabhudesai, a famous youtube tech celebrity in India with over 10.5 million followers) Our Jury brainstormed on the products nominated for a month. It was not an easy task with most Jury members located in other cities across India. Jury members risked their lives travelling, meeting and brainstorming the winners under each category.
Criteria for winning under each nomination was 60% decided by public voting and 40% by jury members. Many categories had nominees battling in a neck to neck competition, and the Jury had a hard time choosing one over the other. The Jury finalised their decisions on 8th December after hours of deliberation. Votes from the public and the Jury were counted, and our winners were decided.
Exhibit Tech Awards – The Event
Sofitel, BKC, Mumbai, was looking ready on 16th December 2021 to host the Exhibit Tech Awards 8.0. Being an invite-only event had the registration personnel scrutinising the attendees with invites, masks, vaccine certifications and everything else to ensure that the event attendees and awardees were in a safe place. Thanks to management at Sofitel, BKC, Mumbai, everyone was accommodated on their respective seats under proper social distancing guidelines. Attendees from the world of technology, Bollywood, social media influencers, bloggers and many more brought liveliness to the event. After being seated, Exhibit Tech Awards 8.0 commenced on time, adhering to strict state guidelines.
The open lawn at Sofitel, BKC, Mumbai, was our choice for the event, considering that temperatures are pleasant in Mumbai during this time of the year. Red carpet attendees were greeted and interviewed by Miss Nashpreet Singh. Before we knew it, our attendees included Mr Arjun Kapoor, Miss Tanisha Mukherjee, Miss Sanya Malhotra, Miss Ekta Maru, Mr Aryan Bajwa, Miss Claudia Cecelia and many more. A beautifully displayed Volkswagen Tiguan stood amongst the stars adding zeal to the event. The bar was open before the event started, and spirits were high. We started the show by greeting the audience, attendees, personnel, partners, and Exhibit group to arrange an outdoor event. The audience was filled with known faces across technology brands anticipating their brand and products to win.
The event started with introducing the hosts, followed by Jury introductions. Before we move further, here is our Jury – Chief executive, Reliance Digital – Mr Brian Bade, fashion and style himself – Mr Shane Peacock, a popular youtube tech and auto celebrity – Mr Arun Prabhudesai, additional DG of police and cyber security expert – Mr Brijesh Singh, ace photographer – Avinash Gowariker, joint MD at Future Retail Ltd and a tech enthusiast – Mr Rakesh Biyani, the man behind timeless tunes – DJ Aqeel, tech and gaming youtube celebrity with over 22million followers and counting – Mr Ujjwal Chaurasia and last but not the least the founder and CEO of Exhibit group – Mr Ramesh Somani.
Mr Ramesh Somani facilitated the Jury members with their gift hampers. We also started by thanking our presenting partner – Reliance Digital, which has been our pillar since Exhibit tech awards 1.0; A big shout out to Volkswagen for coming back as our driven-by partner and the all-new beautiful Tiguan parked in all its glory, our celebration partner 100 pipers and gifting partner – Carerra for making this event possible in an ongoing pandemic. This was soon followed by a sneak peek of our past Exhibit Tech Awards mashup video featuring prominent brands and celebrities.
Nominations and Winners
We started the event with Mr Shane Peacock announcing the winner of smart wearable of the year. The nominations for this category were Apple Watch Series 7, Realme Watch 2 Pro, OPPO Band Style and Noise ColorFit Pro 3. The winner for smart wearable of the year was the Apple Watch Series 7.
Second up were the nominations for Home Theatre of the Year. The competitors were JBL Cinesystem 500SI, Sony HT-S40R, Yamaha YHT-3072, Zebronics – Zeb-Juke Bar 9800DWS Pro Dolby Atmos, and Samsung’s Premiere. Mr Brijesh Singh, our honourable Jury member, presented the award to the winner for Home Theatre of the Year – Sony HT-S40R.
Before we knew it, Mr Arjun Kapoor informed us that he had to be at another event. Thus, Mr Ramesh Somani and Mr Kaushal Neverekar – President & Chief Business Officer – Reliance Digital and Mr Ashish Gupta – Brand Director, Volkswagen India, awarded Mr Arjun Kapoor – the Techy Celeb of the Year award. Mr Arjun Kapoor was honoured to receive the award and thanked the Exhibit group for the same.
The next category to announce their nominations was Gaming Gear of the Year. Nominations included – HyperX Pulsefire Haste Mouse, Predator XB3 Monitor, Logitech G Pro Wireless Mouse, Seagate FireCuda 530 with Heatsink. Mr Arun Prabhudesai, a youtube influencer, announced Seagate FireCuda 530 with Heatsink as the winner.
The headphone of the year was our next category in the queue. Nominations included – Jabra Evolve2 75, Apple Airpods Max, Sennheiser IE 300 and Bose Quietcomfort 45. Mr Avinash Gowariker presented this award to the winner – Jabra Evolve2 75.
As a breather, the event shone lights on an audio-visual spectacle of Tech Fashion tour, an exciting amalgamation of Tech and Fashion from the past six years.
Soon we ventured into the category of Premium TV of the Year. The nominations for the same were The Frame by Samsung, LG OLED G1, VU Masterpiece 85″, Mi QLED TV 75″ and Hisense 55-inch QLED TV (55U6G). Mr Kaushal Neverekar, President and Chief Business Officer, Reliance Digital, presented this award to LG OLED G1.
One of the most popular and strenuous to judge categories was TWS earbuds of the year. There were numerous nominations – Jabra Elite 7 Pro, Jabra Elite 7 Active, AIWA 80X FANC, Realme Buds Air 2, OPPO Enco X, Devialet Gemini and Galaxy Buds Pro. Mr Ashish Gupta, Brand Director Volkswagen India, announced the Galaxy Buds Pro winner.
Gaming laptop of the year had most of our voters and judges brainstorming to choose one as a winner. The result was a tie, and the nominations for the same included Acer Predator Helios 300 11th Gen, Victus by HP 16″, Lenovo Legion 5 Pro and MSI GP76 Leopard 11UG. The tie winners Acer Predator Helios 300 11th Gen and Victus by HP 16″ were presented their awards by the beautiful Miss Ekta Maru.
The most popular gadget that is least thought of in our daily use was the next category – Wireless router of the year. Nominations under this category were DLink – R15, Linksys Max-Stream Mesh WiFi 6, Tenda AC10 and Motorola MH7022 Whole Home WiFi Mesh System. The winner was DLink – R15, and the handsome Mr Arjan Bajwa presented the award.
With the growing versatility of televisions, our unique product category was 4K TV of the year. Nominations included VU Cinema TV Action Series, Realme Smart TV 4K 50″, LG C1 Series, Samsung Crystal 4K UHD and Mi TV 5X 55″. The gorgeous saree Miss Tanisha Mukherjee presented the award to Miss Devita Saraf, CEO of VU Televisions for VU Cinema TV Action Series as the winner under this category.
We all love automobiles. The audience was presented with a glimpse of all the madness we as a team witnessed riding and driving at our sister concern BBC Top gear India. It was an insane rush of some of the best beauties on wheels. Bikes, cars, roads and their exhaust notes were the perfect audio-visual nirvana for automobile enthusiasts.
One of the most talked-about categories of Exhibit Tech Awards was the Budget Smartphone of the Year (Below 20k). Nominations were tough competitors, namely Moto G60, Redmi Note 10 Pro Max and Nokia G10. Our Jury member Mr Arun Prabhudesai announced Motorola G60 as the winner.
Moving on from budget smartphones, the next category and one of the most selling ones across Indian markets is Budget Television of the Year. The nominations – Hisense 55A73F (Tornado Series), Acer Boundless Series 43-inch, Intex LED 5012, Xiaomi Mi 5x and Samsung Crystal 4k UHD. The winner of this category – Xiaomi Mi 5x was a crowd and Jury favourite for the value proposition it brings to the table.
The professional camera of the year is one category that sees the same players in the industry. Nominations here were pretty new products from the camera giants of this realm – Canon EOS M50 Mark II, Nikon Z7 II, Panasonic Lumix and Fujifilm GFX 50S II. Looking stunning, Miss Claudia Ciesla presented the award to our winner – Canon EOS M50 Mark II.
Tech Leader of the Year is another category at Exhibit Tech Awards, witnessing loads of competition. Competing against the best among the best, Mr Madhav Sheth, CEO, Realme India, was awarded this honour. Due to travel and covid reasons addressed the attendees via an audio-visual presentation and thanking note.
Our next category was Storage Device of the Year with nominators SanDisk Expand Wireless Charger Sync, Toshiba Canvio Flex 4TB Portable External HDD and Seagate One Touch with Password and WD My Passport SSD. Presenting the winner WD My Passport SSD was our Jury member Mr Arun Prabhudesai.
Luxury Tech of the Year saw many products that made no sense together apart from their price tag and target audience. Nominations ranged from Acer Concept D, Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Carbon, Sennheiser IE 900, Apple Watch Series 7 Hermes, Galaxy Z Fold3 5G and Samsung Neo QLED TV. Mr Krissan Barretto presented the award to Samsung Galaxy Z Fold3 5G.
Our founder and CEO, Mr Ramesh Somani, presented our awardees starting with Innovative Tech of the Year. Nominations were a mixed bag, including Jabra PanaCast 50, Hypervolt GO, Zhiyun Weebill 2 Pro, Apple Macbook Air M1 and Samsung Galaxy Z Flip3 5G. The winner for this category was Jabra PanaCast 50 for its exciting innovations.
Following the innovations in the tech industry was the award for Innovative Tech in the Auto industry. Mr Ramesh Somani presented this award to JK Tyres for their Smart Tyre technology.
We have been A-1 since Day-1 when it comes to recognising influencer talent. The Exhibit group has recognised talent all across India for the past three years, and everyone present at the event was given a little glimpse of our IP – InfluencEX Awards
Lenovo ideapad slim 51 was awarded the winner for WFH Laptop of the Year. It was a tough competition among the nominations – HP Pavillion Aero 13, Acer Swift 3, Realme Book (slim) and the winner of this category. This category was introduced thanks to the new working habits during an ongoing pandemic.
Our next category is for workaholics around the globe. A machine that will work tirelessly irrespective of your work, flight and sleep schedules. The nominations for the Business Laptop of the Year included Dell Latitude 9520, Acer TravelMate P2, Lenovo ThinkPad T14 and MSI Summit E16 Flip A11UCT. Being a crowd favourite and aligning with Jury votes, the winner for this category was Dell Latitude 9520.
Camera Smartphone of the Year is one category with numerous nominations. Our top picks nominated were Motorola Edge 20 Pro, Vivo X70 PRO+, Oppo Reno 6 Pro 5G, Mi 11 Ultra 5G and Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G. Vivo X70 PRO+ was awarded the best among the rest in this category by Mr Kaushal Neverekar, President and Chief Business Officer, Reliance Digital.
With the gaming craze hitting the youth and young at heart in India, our next category was interesting – Gaming Smartphone of the Year. Nominations included Realme GT 5G, Motorola Edge 20 Pro, Oppo Find X3 Pro, Asus ROG 5, iQOO 7 Legend and Galaxy Z Fold3 5G. Mr Vijay Mahar presented the winner – Asus ROG 5 as the best gaming smartphone of the year.
The A+ tier is the Premium Smartphone of the Year award. Nominations were heavy hitters like the OnePlus 9 Pro, Realme GT NEO2 5G, Oppo Reno 6 Pro 5G, Apple iPhone 13 Pro and Vivo X70 Pro+. Miss Ekta Maru presented the award to Apple iPhone 13 pro as the year’s premium smartphone.
All the winners were called on stage alongside our founder and CEO, Mr Ramesh Somani, Mr Kaushal Neverekar – President & Chief Business Officer – Reliance Digital and Mr Ashish Gupta – Brand Director, Volkswagen India, for a group photo. The awardees were in plenty and filled the stage from one end to the other.
Last but not least, the dynamic trio of Mr Ramesh Somani, Founder and CEO, Exhibit group, Mr Kaushal Neverekar – President & Chief Business Officer – Reliance Digital and Mr Ashish Gupta – Brand Director, Volkswagen India presented the stunning in red Miss Sanya Malhotra as the disruptive talent of the year awardee.
Exhibit Tech Awards
After months of public and jury voting, Mr Ramesh Somani thanked the attendees and the awardees for winning their awards. The event ended on a high with a bar and dining open to all present. Our partners were thanked for their association, and the 8th edition of Exhibit Tech Awards was a great success with happy smiling faces all across the open lawns at Sofitel, BKC, Mumbai.
One of the biggest news of this year has to be Facebook changing its name. Since the company’s launch in 2004, Facebook has changed the way people interact on the Internet and connected people through all walks of life. It also purchased other social media giants such as Instagram and Whatsapp and further invested and broadened its reach in a digital wallet and Virtual Reality Systems.
What is The New Name?
Facebook has changed its corporate name to ‘Meta’ as part of a major rebrand. The name, however, does not apply to its social media platforms like the Facebook app, Instagram, and Whatsapp, but only the parent company. It has also adopted a new logo that looks like infinity.
Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s CEO, announced the new name as he unveiled plans to build a ‘metaverse’. We will talk about the Metaverse part in the latter part of the article.
Imagine telling people you are on Meta. They will be alarmed if you are on some sort of drug. They might even ask you to consider rehabilitation. Here’s the funny part, with all the legal abuses that Facebook has had under its belt, it should actually consider a rehab….there I said it.
Why The New Name?
In a 75-minute online presentation, Mark Zuckerberg urged users to adjust their thinking about the company since he had outgrown its problematic social media network.
The company has had multiple hits on its reputation. The move to change the name comes after multiple allegations over privately and meticulously tracking real-world harms aggravated by its platform, ignored warnings about the risk of their design decisions, and exposed vulnerable communities worldwide to a set of dangerous and harmful content.
The Washington Post also reported that internal documents leak suggested that Facebook hid facts and critical information of the vaccine during the Covid outbreak. The company also sat on research that found Instagram as a leading cause of harming the mental health of teenagers and its inability to remove hate speech from its platform.
It’s like Rakesh committed all the crimes in the world, and when his secret was unveiled in front of the world, he announced that he would be called Mahesh from now onwards. Imagine someone confronting Mahesh for his heinous deeds, and he goes like… Nah bro, that was Rakesh.
However, these are the speculations and possibilities on why Facebook made this sudden move of rebranding its company. According to Zuckerberg, it is done because Facebook wants to create a Metaverse and that the company has grown above being just a social networking platform.
What is Metaverse?
Some are considering it as the future of the Internet. But what exactly is a Metaverse?
A few years back, did it ever cross your mind that a thing called Virtual Reality could allow you to experience games and movies in a way that was happening right in front of your eyes? A metaverse is just an enhanced version of this virtual reality.
You could use a headset to enter a virtual world connecting all sorts of digital environments. This virtual world could be used for practically anything- work, play, concerts, movie theatres, or just hanging out. It is like a universe in itself that is quite vacant but ships everyone virtually. You could have a 3D avatar – a representation of yourself – as you use it.
Quite exciting and scary. Isn’t it? Am I seeing a future where everyone has lost a sense of reality and is as good as their Internet connection? I don’t know. This is just an idea of this whole thing and contains no agreed definition of Metaverse.
Companies Changing Names
Interestingly, Philip Morris Co. Inc., makers of cigarette brands like Marlboro and Chesterfield, changed its name to the anodyne Altria Group to avoid press nightmares. The company was accused of rising tobacco-related deaths. Instead of making customers forget about Philip Morris, Altria’s new name just reminded them that the company wanted to avoid being blamed for the adverse health effects caused by its tobacco products.
ValuJet couldn’t shake the bad reputation it got after flight 592 crashed in the Everglades in 1996. All 110 passengers died in the horrific incident. An investigation revealed SabreTech, the airline’s maintenance contractor, was responsible for the accident due to unsafe cargo conditions. ValuJet merged with AirTran in 1997, giving up its name in the process.
In 2015, Google decided that it would change its name to Alphabet. The reasons provided had mainly to do with clarity for investors. Google’s more controversial projects, such as its efforts to expand its reach with accident-prone drones and sensitive health care technology, no longer have Google’s name on them. They’re now owned by Alphabet, an innocent-sounding company you’ve probably never heard of. If you pick up a random stranger on the streets and ask him what Alphabet is, you will likely receive all sorts of naive and dumb answers.
Conclusion
The thing is, Facebook is not the first company that opted for rebranding after it was covered in a blanket of controversies. This has been done for ages, and sometimes it works, and other times it fails to save the image of the associated company. Only time will tell what lies ahead for Facebook, um, I mean Meta.
Social media giant Facebook is rolling towards a new name to reflect its focus on building the metaverse. The company CEO Mark Zuckerberg wants to focus on building a metaverse and will reveal the new name at the company’s annual Connect conference on October 28th, the Verge reported on Tuesday, but when asked about the confirmation, Facebook said it does not comment on rumours or speculations.
The company might reveal the new name earlier and it will act as a medium where the Menlo Park, California-based firm seeks to be known for more than social media and the scrutiny associated with it. The rebrand would likely position the blue Facebook app as a separate product under a parent company just like Instagram, WhatsApp, Oculus, and more. However, the company spokesperson declined to comment on the story.
Earlier this week, the company announced its plans to create 10,000 new high-skilled positions in the European Union over the next five years to build a so-called metaverse. Also, in the month of July the Facebook CEO stated, “we will effectively transition from people seeing us as primarily being a social media company to being a metaverse company” while talking about building consumer hardware like AR glasses.
What is Metaverse?
The term “Metaverse” was first coined in Snow Crash, a 1992 sci-fi novel by Neal Stephenson. The word is made up of the prefix meta – meaning beyond and the stem verse – a back-formation from the universe and is typically used to describe the concept of a virtual reality version of the internet that Facebook sees as the future.
Metaverse represents a collection of shared online worlds in which people can hang out with friends, colleagues, can visit places, can buy goods and services, and even attend events by converging physically with Augmented Reality, and Virtual Reality. Facebook has already invested heavily in virtual reality and augmented reality and plans to invest $50 million to partner with organizations to responsibly build the metaverse.
The possible new name
Facebook isn’t the first tech company to change its company name, in 2015, Google reorganized entirely under a holding company called Alphabet, to show the world they are not just limited to the search engine. A new possible name could have something on the similar lines with Horizon, a VR gaming platform which rebranded itself to “Horizon Worlds”. The new name will not affect the current products and will continue to act as an umbrella of all brands.
In this age, where we are driven by and on social media entirely, it’s hard to imagine what our lives would be if they got shut even for an hour.
Facebook, Whatsapp, and Instagram are now starting to come back online after a widespread outage that lasted more than six hours on Monday, disrupting communications for more than 3 billion users.
Not being able to post a new photo can be annoying, but it is not catastrophic. But for Whatsapp users, losing the encrypted messaging service is a life-halting change.
WhatsApp being down means calls and messages to friends and family can go unanswered, customer service requests unaddressed, and vital organizing information unattended.
Facebook said in a tweet,
“To the huge community of people and businesses around the world who depend on us: we’re sorry. We’ve been working hard to restore access to our apps and services and are happy to report they are coming back online now. Thank you for bearing with us.”
What Was The Reason For This Outage?
Through a blog post on Monday night, Facebook said that the six-hour outage that took it offline along with Instagram, Messenger, Whatsapp, and OculusVR was the result of a configuration change to its routers — not of a hack or attempt to get at user data.
These explanations, however, do not give many details on the issue. Facebook says that “this disruption to network traffic had a cascading effect on the way our data centers communicate, bringing our services to a halt.”
CEO Mark Zuckerberg posted an apology Monday evening, saying the platforms were coming back online. “Sorry for the disruption today — I know how much you rely on our services to stay connected with the people you care about.”
Outages are nothing new in the world of social media, and servers often experience slowdowns. Facebook’s outage was a bit unusual since it affected all the company’s products, including its central site and, most importantly, Whatsapp, the encrypted messaging service used widely around the world.
On late Monday, a global outage intruded Mark Zuckerberg’s empire of apps, which include WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, Oculus VR, and apps that required Facebook login to work. The services of these vital Facebook platforms used by billions of people were down worldwide, including in India, for about 6-long hours. The apps slowly flashed back to life, but it turned out to be the most prolonged outage in the history of Facebook platforms.
Over 3.5 billion people worldwide use Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp to communicate with friends and family, and a large number of people use these platforms to expand and promote their businesses through advertising and outreach. The outage again shows the world how much we’re dependant on social media platforms and how a couple of hours of outage could disrupt our day-to-day lives.
The Reason
The company hasn’t clarified the reason behind the outage yet, but when contacted, a WhatsApp spokesperson said in a statement, “We’re aware that some people are experiencing issues with WhatsApp at the moment. We’re working to get things back to normal and will send an update here as soon as possible. Thanks for your patience!” A similar official statement arrives from a Facebook and Instagram spokesperson apologizing for the inconvenience.
We’re aware that some people are experiencing issues with WhatsApp at the moment. We’re working to get things back to normal and will send an update here as soon as possible.
The outage could be due to issues related to the server-side, like past outage incidents wherein platforms like WhatsApp, Instagram, and Messenger experienced massive outages. Another reason could be issues related to its Domain Name System records, often referred to as the internet’s phone book, which is where those sites stay live. One of the Twitter users discovered and tweeted, “someone nuked the DNS A and AAA records for Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp”.
Meanwhile, taking advantage of the situation, Twitter CEO jokingly asked the same user who revealed the issues related to DNS A and AAA records how much are Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp up for sale? Furthermore, during the 6-hour long outage, people favoured Twitter, Signal, iMessage and others to connect with friends and family members. Facebook and its platforms ultimately restored their services after a team got access to the server computers, but the outage’s cause remained unclear.
Whatsapp’s message reporting has been under scrutiny lately after an investigation revealed a possible breach of privacy earlier this month.
The Facebook-owned company has now decided to roll out a new, effortless method to help users report messages. The latest WhatsApp beta version for Android allows single, specific messages to be reported to WhatsApp without any complicated process.
The current contact reporting system sends the message that is reported alongside the previous four messages to WhatsApp. The additional messages give context for the company to decide whether they should be banning the contact.
The new feature allows the users to highlight a single message, whether from an individual chat, a group chat, or a business account.
Anyone running the latest Whatsapp version will get a new drop-down option on the top left when they select a specific message. Tapping that option will open a dialogue box for you to blog the offending account.
It is still not clear when WhatsApp will launch this feature, but it can be rolling out to everyone in the coming weeks or even days, given its existing reporting mechanism’s criticism. The fact that the feature is already functional in the beta build indicates that the feature could be ready for a much wider release.
Facebook’s New Head of Hardware Division
Now speaking of Facebook, the company promoted Andrew Bosworth, the current head of its hardware division, to chief technology officer, on Wednesday.
Facebook’s current hardware products include the Oculus Quest VR headset, the Portal video chat device lineup, and its new camera-equipped smart glasses with Ray-Ban. The company is also developing AR glasses with displays in them, which according to Zuckerberg, will one day be as ubiquitous as mobile phones. A smartwatch with a detachable display and two cameras is also in the works for as soon as next year.
Bosworth is one of Facebook’s longest-serving executives and is working in the company for over 15 years.
Twitter is all set to test out its new feature called Communities, which, as the name suggests, allow people with similar interests to connect and exchange conversations.
This is somewhat a similar feature to Facebook Group, which lets people chat about specific topics and can be set to either public or private.
Twitter explains through a blog post, that only members will be allowed to post and reply to conversations in communities, which is similar to what Facebook does. However, the difference between Facebook groups and Twitter communities is that the conversations in communities will be visible to everyone. That means everyone on Twitter will be able to read or even Quote Tweet posts from a Community even if they aren’t a member of it.
Twitter says users can also report a chat if it goes against Twitter’s rules. Each Community will also have moderators approved by Twitter. These moderators set the rules for the Community and can also invite others to join the chat. Twitter users will have to be invited through a direct message to join a Community.
Twitter says that during the early stages of testing, Community communications will just be restricted to a handful of topics such as: dogs, weather, sneakers, skincare, and astrology. Twitter users will need to be invited by either moderators or existing members before they can join a certain Community, but Twitter says that it will open up more ways to join and recruit in the future.
Twitter doesn’t have a say yet on how many users will have access to Twitter Communities but it noted that a “limited group” of people in the US will be able to create these group chats. Anyone globally can receive an invite to a Community.
