ethnicomm – the blog part I

The June 2009 issue of Business Week has an article called Social Networking: Facebook Looks to India which discusses the push that Facebook is doing to increase market share. The international manager for Facebook is quoted as saying “people like to communicate in Indian languages” (instead of Hinglish). I humbly suggest that enterprising Desi’s will figure out their own way of customizing Facebook – they don’t need a direct translation.

Here are my top 9 predictions of what would change for Facebook’s Desi version:

1. Matrimonial widget that automatically deletes any references to your BF/GF, drinking or any other “hanky panky”.
2. In addition to birthday cakes, you can send samosas and premium ladoos to your friends.
3. You can’t poke someone but you can “dishoom” them mercilessly.
4. Status update options will initially consist of “ji, very good”,”that’s fine, ek-dum fine” and fass-class”.
5. News feeds will be called samachar achar.
6. The We’re Related app will crash the server as everyone adds their masi’s and chachas.
7. Mafia wars will be called Gunda Wars.
8. The Notes section will be called chits.
9. You can’t just tag people, you have to play kabadi until you win the honour of tagging them.

What do you think? Does Facebook need to have 6 different Indian languages to capture share from Orkut?