Dinesh Varma’s Cyber Puzhukkalum Poombattakalum , which translates into ‘Cyber Caterpillars and Butterflies’, is an interesting collection of approximately six essays on the cyber world. The author has brought out an eminently readable and non-academic study that throws light on social networking for the ignorant, the greenhorn, as well as the almost-savvy among cyber citizens.
The book is certainly not about Facebook alone, as one is apt to imagine in connection with any thought on social networks these days. It touches upon the various other social networking platforms too, such as Twitter, MySpace, Orkut, Google Plus, Linked In and YouTube, among the others in use.
In about a hundred pages, the author takes us through the social dimensions of cyber networks, their origins, their baby-hiccups, growth, and in some cases like Orkut, their near-death for the Indian origin user.
The very first essay, in fact, deals with the pros and cons of the connection between social networks and society; and refers to the various studies and incidents which point to how the two entities are now entangled.
There is a whole essay devoted to Facebook, but that’s only to be expected, considering the huge numbers of Facebook users and aspirants among the Malayalam-speaking folk. This essay, titled ‘Samoohya Shrunghala Jalakam’ or ‘Social Networking Window’ discusses in some detail almost all you would want to know about using Facebook. One new thing a veteran Facebooker like me learnt from this book was about the Social Memories concept on offer.
The book presents interesting snippets to the neo-literates among webizens. Did you know sixdegrees.com was the very first of social networks? And that Orkut was named after a Turkish software engineer Orkut Büyükkökten who worked with Google, and who had designed the concept of this social network? And in case you are a post-Orkut, and currently-on-Facebook infant, it would be news to you when the author links the block buster film Classmates (Malayalam) to the surge of Orkut among the netizens of Kerala. And did you know Orkut still prevails in about 43 languages across the world?
There is predictably an entire chapter on the ‘Arab Spring’. Another fascinating topic touched upon in the book is about how the ‘freedom of the crowds’ has created a new kind of politics. Perhaps this becomes all the more relevant in the post-hustings scenario in India, where the social media has been used like never before in managing opinions.
Dinesh has steered clear of using convoluted lingo and laid out his arguments and observations in an uncomplicated and well thought-out manner. A crisp note by cyber expert V.K. Adarsh endorses the place of the book in the current social scenario.
Cyber Puzhukkalum Poombattakalum
Dinesh Varma
Rs.95
Deshabhimani Book House
