How Affimity is different from other social networks..!!

“Change is the ultimate truth”, is a very famous saying.
Be it technology, fashion or food, a change which brings something new and different is always appreciated.

In 21^st century the interests of people are also changing in quick successions and one industry where the players have to be always on their toes to be in sync is Social Media.
In today’s world, youth spends maximum time of their day on Social Media platforms.
The day starts with checking notifications on Facebook, rolling eyes over Whatsapp messages and counting the no of hearts on Instagram.

Each of these social media platforms has their own importance but do they really stand up to our expectations when it comes to promoting your passion. Lets have a look.

Facebook helps you connect with your friends and batchmates. It provides you a daily updated feed of the recent happenings in their lives and with the new emotions feature you can express at it in a better way.
But with so much of stuff happening at the same time, it is really difficult to cope up with everything going around, especially the things that interest you.
Though we have thousands of Facebook Groups on each major interest say food, travel, gadgets, technology, parenting or yoga, these groups end up discussing similar things without much interaction and are suboptimal.
Each individual on FB is just busy promoting his/her own stuff giving minimal importance to what others have to provide, hence it becomes really difficult for starters to promote their passion.

There are other platforms like Pinterest and Instagram where you find lot of unique stuff that interests you and it is also easy to showcase your passion and get lot of interaction around it on a global level.
All mentioned above looks great but there is a one bottleneck when you think on a larger perspective, which is to build a community around your passion as these social networks lack advanced social features.

Twitter is one channel where you get the highest level of engagement, but the life of a tweet is just of few minutes making the time of interaction very less as compared to what is required to pursue your passion and build an audience around it.

Here is where the new-gen social media networks like Linkedin and Affimity makes the most sense.
They focus on your interests and passions within a community context.
You interact and share thoughts with people who share your interests (Professional advancement in case of Linkedin) and passions. Unlike Linkedin that focuses on one interest (and does that exceedingly well), Affimity brings more than 30 channels, each catering to a specific passion - Food, Parenting, Travel, Hollywood, Cricket, Jokes to name a few.

Let’s get to know this new player more.

What is Affimity?
Affimity is the coming together of Passion (Affinity) and Friendship (Amity). It is a social network, reimagined as a collection of interest-specific social channels. Each channel has dedicated content - curated as well as the community buzz, and people you can follow or friend. It also has a feed from just your friends and following, valuable advice and recommendations from people who share that passion, and services appropriate for that channel.

How it works?
First thing first, create a profile with all the relevant information, upload your pic, update the about me section and you are all set to explore the world of Affimity.
There are more than 30 channels catering to different interests and passions.
Every time you add a post in any channel, it creates a social blog for you, here  is mine.  Would love to connect with you on Affimity too, do follow me J

And the best part of Affimity is you only have to focus on quality of post and not desperately hunt for audience as Affimity Social network does that job for you.

My experience
It has been more than 3 months now on Affimity and I am really happy to be here.
I have shared around 15 posts which have received more than 100 comments and 500 likes.
Adding to it are the 1000+ followers and friends I have got connected to.
Also the user views on my blogposts (Which I have shared here) have increased significantly.

All this in just 3 months is like super awesome stuff..!!!

I love the way communities are formed, keeping in view the various interests and passions.
Some well thought upon unique communities include Everyday Science, Swifties, Lawrits, Starkids, Make In India and Immigration.

Would love to see new communities dedicated to Photography, Social Media and Sports (All in one community for all sports).

Also reply to a comment feature will enhance the engagement experience.

Overall Affimity is a great platform for all those who are looking to connect with likeminded souls sharing the same interests and passions. Interaction and Engagement at its best.

App Download Links
App Store: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/affimity/id1010900777?mt=8

Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.affimity&hl=en

The new revolution in Communication World - "Internet.Org"

Internet has been perhaps the most outstanding innovation in the field of information technology and communication. It is like a global meeting place where people from all parts of the world can connect with each other.
Today internet is the most powerful tool for the people around the world.
It is like a super massive server having plethora of information available to billions of people of the world. But the sad part is still two third of the world doesn't have access to internet.

To improve the condition an initiative called “Internet.org” has been started.

About the initiative
Internet.org is a Facebook-led initiative bringing together technology leaders, nonprofits and local communities to connect the two thirds of the world that doesn’t have internet access.

Why aren't people connected to internet?
Some of the reasons why people are not connected are as below
a. There are no networks in many remote areas.
b. Gadgets which provide internet connectivity are too expensive.
c. Service plans are heavy on pocket.

The Big Goal      
Making internet available to each and every individual of the world.

Participants
a. Ericsson
b. Mediatek
c. Opera Software
d. Samsung
e. Facebook
f. Nokia
g. Qualcomm

Advantages of Free Internet

  Ø  Education
There are lot of villages in our country where children, especially girls are not able to take admission in school as it is very far away from their home and there are no proper means of transportation available.
In such situations, children who are the future of our country are even deprived of the basic education.              
If we have free internet facility in these villages, children would be able to study sitting at their home.
If we talk about cities, there are many bright children who lag behind because of unavailability of
internet. They are unable to complete assignments and projects before deadline and have to face the heat.  Also many students miss out on the deadline of the forms of top colleges because of unavailability of net.
With free internet facility the quality and scope of education is definitely going to increase.

  Ø  Employment

With free internet facility, people living in remote areas who don’t have a job can earn their livelihood by working as a freelancer. Also people who are disabled or can’t travel can take online coaching or sessions to earn their bread & butter.

Students can earn while studying by working on different online assignments.

So with free internet the employment percentage in India is definitely going to shoot up.

  Ø Corporate World
With free internet access people would be able to work from anywhere in India.
There are lots of people in metros especially Mumbai who daily travel for hours.
If they have access to internet, they can easily check mails and complete pending work while they are on the move.
With free internet facility quality of work will improve and efficiency will increase as people will have more time to complete it.

  Ø  Awareness

Free internet facility will help to improve awareness among society on different aspects.
Farmers will be aware about the modern technologies used in farming.
Students will remain updated about the latest courses and happenings in their field.
People of India will be aware about the latest buzz and happenings in the world.
In case of wars, outbreak of dreadful diseases and other emergencies important awareness messages can be send to each and every citizen of India through free internet facility.

  Ø  Safety

Today rapes and eve teasing cases have increased rapidly in India.
Safety of women has become the prime concern of our nation.
In such situations if we have free internet facility than the location of a girl in danger can be tracked easily. Also she can use different apps to send alert messages to police and her near and dear ones.

Free internet facility also comes handy when we are lost and need to use Google maps to discover the right path.

Our soldiers can use it for monitoring enemy locations, controlling different weapons and internal communication.

All the above points emphasize on the fact that free internet facility has a lot of advantage when it comes to safety of every citizen of our nation.

  Ø  Tourism

Free wireless zone is loved by all. The moment a tourist dive in our country and his phone dings an announcement of free WIFI, definitely leaves a good first impression on his mind.

This will allow India to be recognized as a developed and tech savvy country.

In addition, all the happenings, events and things to do in a particular city can be easily checked by the tourists, which will result in more number of footfalls at every tourist location.

  Ø  Disaster Relief

The benefit of free WIFI is huge in disaster situations.
In one click you can spread information about where to volunteer or get help, which roads are closed and what supplies are to be needed.

Free internet facility can definitely improve and increase the scope of communication during disaster relief operations, saving lot of lives.

  Ø Networking
Be it for business or personal purpose, networking and socializing holds the key to success.
With free WIFI you can easily trace check ins of important people and can connect with them if you are in vicinity.

Also you can analyze the favorite places visited by your potential future clients and can win a deal while dropping in there.

You can easily promote stuff on social media sites while you are in any part of the country with the use of free internet facility.

How internet.org is doing in India?
Reliance communication and Facebook have come together in India to bring free access to 38 web sites for reliance mobile users via Internet.org.
The speed of net will depend on the kind of connection (2G or 3G) a user is having.

Here is the list of all websites that can be accessed for free
Aaj Tak
AccuWeather
Amarujala.com
AP Speaks
Babajob
BabyCenter & MAMA
BBC News
Bing Search
Cleartrip
Daily Bhaskar
Dictionary.com
ESPN Cricinfo
Facebook
Facts for Life
Girl Effect
HungamaPlay
IBNLive
iLearn
India Today
Internet Basics
Jagran
Jagran Josh
Maalai Malar
Maharashtra Times
Malaria No More
Manoramanews.com
Messenger
NDTV
Newshunt
OLX
Reliance Astrology
Reuters Market Lite
Socialblood
Times of India
TimesJobs
Translator
Wikipedia
wikiHow

Conclusion
It is a great initiative which will bring people around the world together.
The dream of connected world will surely turn into reality with Internet.org.

Say Thanks !!!

Thanksgiving is going to be celebrated on 27th November all over world.
Primarily in United States of America and Canada where it is celebrated as a day of giving thanks for the blessing of the harvest and of the preceding year.

This time Facebook has come out with a new application "Say Thanks".

Using this you can say thanks to any of your friend on FB through a video.

There are 3 categories in which FB gives you options and ask to select.

1. Choose a theme
    a. Old Friends
    b. Friends
    c. Family

2. Choose a greeting
    Hey (name of person)
    Hey Grandma
    Hey Mom

3. Choose posts and photos
    Here you can choose solo pics of your friend or with you.
    Also you can choose posts which you posted on his/her wall or where that person has mentioned
    you on his/her wall.

The Video comes out to be really superb.
A very unique and creative way of saying thanks.
So start with creating videos for your friends and make the bond of friendship even more stronger on this Thanksgiving.

KotakJifi Indiblogger Meet : Now Experience banking via Social Media

I was waiting from a long time for an Indiblogger meet in Mumbai and when the KotakJifi meet was announced I quickly hopped on to it. What added to the excitement was it was first meet to be organised simultaneously across Mumbai, Bangalore & Delhi.

Informed all my blogger friends as I was so eager to meet them.
Agenda for the meet was the launch of new service by Kotak Mahindra Bank called Jifi.
Venue was Cafe Zoe in Lower Parel. It was an afternoon meet, commencing from 12 p.m. till 4.

It was a fresh Sunday morning!!
As planned I was going to meet Stephen, Monica & Vikrant at Andheri Station from where we were supposed to start for Cafe Zoe.
As usual everyone was on time expect Stephen who made us wait for half hour. I was so wanting to kill him for that along with Monica but we controlled our instincts.
Renu called to accompany and we had one more member added to our gang.

After reaching Lower Parel we walked our way to Cafe Zoe. Many veteran bloggers who were regular at Indimeets had already booked their seats. But we were eyeing the other members of our gang Karan, Rohan, Tapobrata, Vaisakhi, Deepti & Fatima. After scanning the complete venue we finally found them sitting at the upper floor. We walked upstairs and smiling faces greeted us.
It is so much fun when the complete gang is together.
Leg pulling, complementing each other's attire and clicking pics started in no time.

Our host for the day Anoop from Indiblogger announced free drinks and in no time bar was flooded with people, everyone wanting to get their booze first.
After all were settled with their drinks , twitter contest made its way.
It was simple, click a selfie with most no of people in it and walk away with vouchers & goodies.

Anoop as usual was a great host who kept us entertaining till the secret chief guest took his position.
We were shown different videos and this time "Hudd Hudd" was replaced by the lyrics that were coming on the TV. We enjoyed cheering every word loud and with full passion & intensity.

Next we had to guess the chief guest's name. There were lots of wild guesses ranging from Actors to even Cricketers. Finally no one could guess the name correctly and our excitement reached a different level altogether.

When he finally appeared on the podium everyone was cheering for non other than Mr Chetan Bhagat.
He started with promotion of movie "2 States" which is adaptation of his novel by same name.
Next we were provided insides about Jifi through presentations & Videos.
Finally he introduced, Mr Manian, Country head for consumer banking at Kotak Mahindra.
We were asked to tweet our questions regarding Jifi which he was going to answer.

The live streaming of event in Mumbai was made available to the bloggers in Bangalore & Delhi.
After the Q&A round we headed for lunch. There were not many options in veg which disappointed me specially.

After lunch Anoop announced another tweeter contest called Kotak Premier league where all were divided into 6 groups. Each group had to tweet about Jifi, how the experience of connecting banking with social media was different. We fell into group 6. Unfortunately we couldn't win but our friends won SPA vouchers.

Another Superb Indiblogger meet concluded successfully and not the forget the awesome Tees that were given by the Indi team at the end.

Lets now explore Jifi
1. Kotak Jifi bank account is not a traditional bank account but a new age socially & digitally synchronized account. It's a new age social banking which lets you do everything with your account just my being on social media.

2. Facebook & Twitter are the new platforms for anywhere-anytime access to your bank account and hassle-less transactions. You just need to be on facebook to open a brand new Jifi account.

3. You can receive banking account updates via twitter & refer friends via Facebook.
4. So having more friends on FB is so beneficial for me as every referral earns me reward points.
    Also every time you like or comment on Facebook you get reward points.
    You transact online and you get more reward points.
    The more you are social the more you earn points.
    This loyalty points can be used in shopping, entertainment activities like movies & dinning purposes.

5.  No minimum balance, no tension. As kotak Jifi account comes with no minimum balance feature it
     allows you to shop & dine without giving a second thought about your balance.
6.  Kotak Money Watch -:
     Do you want a feature that keeps track of your expenditure as you spend a lot on shopping and
     other activities, then money watch is for you.
     You can connect your bank accounts to it and see the net worth, calculate taxes & keep track of all
     the expenses and bills.
7.  Balance above Rs 25,000 is converted into term deposit.
     Now this is an add on. No minimum deposit was a special feature which gets integrated with this,
     adding on to your money.
8. Platinum Debit Card -:
   With your Jifi account comes the Platinum debit card which is packed with lot of features.
    Every time you do shopping or online transactions you earn points and can easily redeem them.

So everything on your Jifi account is just a tweet away.
I am hooked to this idea of social banking and feels that Kotak Jifi account is more a youngster like me.
I would recommend to definitely get ours or become my friend on FB and I will send you the invite..:)
Till next meet CYA..TC

     

11 years hence...Internet made us meet again..!!!

It was a routine boys talk going on between me and my bst buddy Amit..We were discussing about d upcoming fashion show in abhay prashal by sdps woman clg and figuring out some means to get d passes..Amit was in renaissance clg and was telling me abt d fun he had in his fresher's party..

Suddenly I came up wid an idea of organizing a school get together party..
"lets invite all our friends who were wid us till 4th" ,I tld amit..
amit was amazed as it had been 11 years down d line and we had no clue where most of our childhood friends were..

I was not hearing as I was lost in my own world..remembering those past memories..how we used to go to school by riskshaw..all fun we had..suddenly my sail through d memories came to a halt..it was her..Kratika..I becme nostalgic..all memories started pouring in at once..games which we played together..cycling in d evening and how can I forget those samll fights we had..I was trying to remember d incident when I was fighting wid her for a corner seat and a slap..!!!
I was ready to retaliate but saw d beautiful face of Kratika covered wid hands..trying to say, plzz dont hit m..

I got a blow on my back but this time it was amit..I came back to reality and asked amit to contact those who were in town from our class 4th batch..After bidding him good bye I came back home, took out my cell and started searching for Kratika on internet..d best means was social networking...I only knew that she left for ujjain after completing her 4th standard..The year was 2008 and at that time there was no Facebook so it was really a tough job to search her.

With the little information I had , I began searching for all Kratika's living in ujjain on orkut as it was the most popular social networking site at that time...finally after 4 hrs of searching I found my gal..her profile had a pic of rani mukherji..there were only some 500 scraps which showed that she was not an orkut freak..more precisely orkut addict..

Would she remember me???
will she accept my friendship request?? what would I say her??
My mind was filled wid lots of similar thoughts..
Finally I decided to tell her how much I had missed her after she left..her departure was like a shock to me..there was no1 left to play,fight and most importantly share my immature thoughts..

"ur kidding man..u found her?? really..!!!", enquired amit , as he was astonished to hear about Kratika from me.."I think I was in love dude..childhood love..u know" I told amit
and also about all thoughts that kept on surging in my mind all d day before..

"Are u serious..?? do u still love her..?? it has been 11 years and u guys havn't even seen each others face once..bet m she wont even remember u.." ,amit assured me, as if he was some fortuneteller.

I dont knew anything, I just wanna talk to her..share all that i have in my mind..I think it might be too late..she would have a bf..or on d worst side she wont even remember m..bt I will give it a try..saying this to amit I left, wid a hope of getting my friendship request been accepted..

I  logged on to orkut widout wasting a single minute and quickly searched d list of friend requests I had sent. To my amazement Kratika's name was not there..it meant that she had accpetd d request..yes!! she still remembers m..
I was on cloud 9..

In a blink of an eye she came online and pinged me..I had goose bumps all over my body..she had a long list of questions waiting for me..how did u found me after so long..??
where u had been so many years..?? and d list was endless..

We started chating regularly..Kratika was in jaipur and was doing engineering..
she had few frnds there as most of her best buddies were in ujjain...I was a bit disappointed not to find my name in her bst buddies list, but appeased myself by thinking about 11 long years we have remained apart..
I was really happy to find that she remembered all d fun and fights which we had together specially d slap 1..she laughed aloud on remembering that incident but then apologized d next minute for hitting me that hard..:)

As time passed we became gud frnds again..we used to chat for minimum 2-3 hrs and had started enjoying each othrs company..I felt that this was d right time to tell her what all I felt and how much I missed her..

Next day as I logged in to orkut, I was amazed to find her already there as most of the times it was me who came first.. Anyways I pinged her..after a little conversation of hi..hellos and wassp, she became silent and stopped responding..I felt that there was something wrong with her...
"R u upset", I asked her..Is everythng f99 at home ??..

well there was no response but suddenly my cell started ringing..it was Kratika.
She was crying like hell..I tried to appease her and asked her what d matter was??
than came d ans which I never expected..she had a serious quarrel with her Bf today...Down came d tears from my eyes..Why didn't she tell me abt her bf before..??..now I had started liking her again..but all in vain..

Ankit..Ankit..!!!..are u there called a soft voice..it was of Kratika..I came back to my senses and pretended as if nothing has happened to me...I started consoling her and ensured her that everything will be f99..

Well I couldn't sleep d whole night..the word bf was going round and round in my mind..should I tell her the truth..confess my liking for her..but what if she says no...how would she feel after listening all this..what if she even dont wanna remain friends wid me..all scary thoughts started coming to my mind..finally I decided not to confess anything, but to help her by all means I can and always remain friends wid her..

Kratika was a happy gal now..she had reconciled wid her bf..
"It is all bcz of  those advice and suggestions that you used to give me on our long chats,
 Ur my best buddy Ankit", she confirmed while we were chatting on GMAIL...

"It was a very small thing for my sweetest friend ever" ,I responded..

Slowly wid time I had learnt to keep myself away from all those feelings that I had for her..

Today both of us are into job and work for top IT companies of India..
Though we get less time for each other due to office pressure, work burden, mismatch of office timings but still we chat on gmail, like each other stuff on facebook and talk to each other on skype on weekends..

It is always fun to play games, download movies and videos, try different Apps and use the GPS to get directions to your favorite destinations on one go on internet, but when you get to meet your old school friends, 1st time chat with your crush , meet those childhood langotiya yaars, its really much more than fun..it than becomes your second home, a place where you can remain in contact with all your near and dear ones.

                                   


Today though internet has many pitfalls and loopholes but if we see the brighter side of it you will surely agree with me that,
It is all because of the power of Internet that I got my childhood's best friend back.
It is one of the most important means to communicate and has a very big part in helping us to keep our long distance Friendship intact and still remain the best of best pals..:)

                              

This post is part of contest Internet is Fun on  Indiblogger.