First Friendster and now Google goes east

In December 2007, Mashable announced Friendster’s expansion to Korea and Japan. Time.com also reported on how Friendster found it’s sweet spot in Asia,

Thanks largely to an accident of geography, it’s become Southeast Asia’s top social networking site. Asia is home to three-quarters of Friendster’s 58 million users, compared to 17% in the U.S., and it’s the source of 89% of the site’s traffic, compared to just 8% from North America.

Now it’s Google’s turn to ‘go east’. Mashable reports that Airtel and Google have partnered to offer Google apps like Gmail, Google Docs, Google Calendar, etc.

Airtel Telemedia Services, India’s “largest private broadband and telephone service provider,” has announced its launch of a new Web portal (airtellive.com) in partnership with Google, who will be co-branding the effort. The company’s customers “will receive free access” to the software solutions held within the Google Apps suite, according to UNI.

I think this move makes all the sense in the world for Google, who faces intense competition on its home base and not to mention, it hasn’t been successful in monetizing any of its applications. By tying up with Airtel, it can increase the penetration and usage of its applications in the world’s second-most populace nation.

Buzz about nothing? Here come Twitter Color Wars

I think ‘nothing’ is waaaaaay underrated. Think about it, Seinfeld made it big despite being a show about..well..nothing. Twitter is yet another tribute to our obsession with feckless entertainment. The techno-crowd is going ga-ga over the Color Wars, where you pick your ‘color team’ and join them in an online ‘war’. Their first challenge? Take a picture of yourself throwing either rock, paper, or scissor. Yeah, I know..words fail me.

The frentic pace of the net is energizing but it’s also creating an era of paranoia – blink and you might just miss the next big nothing. In the spirit of not getting left behind on meaningless-phenomenon-that-might-snowball-into-something-big, Mashable has finally endorsed verygreenteam for the Twitter Color Wars, which they lovingly describe as,

"..the shortest-lived web fad since the Star Wars Kid team"

It’s simply fascinating that a site/utility like Twitter (which still hasn’t figured out a way to monetize) has emerged as a force to be reckoned with. The Twitteratis flexed some serious muscle during Sarah Lacy’s trainwreck of an interview with Facebook’s Zuckerberg at SXSW, when they rallied to take control of an interview gone bad. Twitter has tremendous potential for creating big-time buzz (and organizing) over political candidate, new product, war protest, or over just plain old-fashioned nothing like… Color Wars. 

So, while you peruse the latest happenings on this non-event at  Mashable’s Twitter page, I am off to burn some serious threadmill rubber before I go all soft and mushy fighting virtual wars on my laptop