Orkut Marketing

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Hello.
Good morning sir, this is Kavya calling on behalf of GoondaLoan bank. Your friend Jatin has a GoondaLoan gold card and we know you want one too. Lifetime free sir. No monthly fee!

Sounds like the regular telemarketing call from some stranger who knows your name and bank balance. Only this time she also happens to know all your friends and the exact nature of each relationship. Welcome to the world of social network based marketing.

Our electronic communications, everything from phone records to emails and scrapbook entries, provide valuable information about who we are. By mining these records, a marketer knows who the people in our life are. She knows how close you are to each person. And she knows what the people in your life are doing, probably better than you do, because it’s her job to know. She might even know who your girlfriend was dating back in high school.

Consider this. The people in our lives have enormous influence the over us. We often see the world through their eyes. We base some of our toughest decisions on their advice. They give meaning and purpose to life itself. In short, our social interactions define who we are as individuals. Someone with access to distilled information about my social interactions can almost read my mind. And possibly change it.

Kavya is selling a credit card. She could just as well be selling a political ideology.