Indian Guru for Facebook
By Bala Shah

Popular American website valleywag is reporting that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg was in India to visit the ashram of spiritual guru Neem Karoli Baba.  Apparently, Apple big boss Steve Jobs and Google cofounder Larry Page have also had darshan of the Baba.  According to the article, the Director of Google’s entrepreneurial philanthropy project, Google.org,  Larry Brilliant,  is a disciple, and was instrumental in introducing Neem Karoli Baba to these tech tycoons.

The revered guru’s website http://www.neemkarolibaba.com/ says “we need donations from devotees to remain online”.   We are sure Mr. Facebook can chip in.

One of the favorite sayings of Guru Neem Karoli Baba is that attachment is the strongest block to realization.  Surely, this pearl of wisdom is something which all social networking website addicts could learn from.

(Techgoss had run the following story on May 17, 2008)

Facebook reward gets leads
By Bala Shah

On Thursday, May 8, techgoss announced a small reward for photos of Facebook founder in India.  We had hoped that Indian tech professionals in our tech hubs would snap him on their mobile phones and send in the photo. Reward given.  Done and dusted, and we all move on.

For some reason it caught the imagination of the movers and shakers of some tech media in USA.  A number of people emailed and phoned in tips including some from within Facebook.  Most requested confidentiality.

After sifting through the many leads, it seems that Wall Street Journal/All Things Digital’s Kara Swisher was on the right track when she scooped everyone in her article where she stated “According to sources, Zuckerberg is in India and, in fact, all over the world, on a trip that is mostly for pleasure and contemplation, but also mixing it with some business”.

A senior Facebook manager rang techgoss to fill in the blanks.  According to him Mark Zuckerberg hates personal confrontation and timed his holidays in such a way that he would not be in town when old comrades in arms like CTO Adam D'Angelo were being sidelined.  Apparently, the new COO Sheryl Sandberg ran the new structure by Mark before he left on his break

But so far none of our tipsters had a photo of Mark in India.

Both Kara Swisher and our anonymous Facebook tipster seem to be more concerned about the pursuit of truth and facts rather than monetary rewards.  Kara was gracious enough to email techgoss saying “Glad I could help you a little! No rupee reward needed”.  The well connected Facebook manager had a giggle when offered the reward saying, “At Facebook, we are rolling in money.  It should be the other way around. We should be paying gossip websites who add some spice to our often boring technology work”.

Techgoss note:  If no one claims the reward for the article, we will donate the Rs. 5000 to charity this month.  The photo may always come in later, so we will hold that reward.

Techgoss note:   The reward received wide publicity in India and overseas. Following are links to some of the news articles on the reward.

America’s most popular gossip website valleywag, with a loyal readership of hundreds of thousands, did a snippet of the idea

http://valleywag.com/388478/indian-website-puts-five+digit-bounty-on-mark-zuckerbergs-head

Next, successful Indian businessman and super blogger, Amit Ranjan,  was kind enough to cover it in his respected website

http://www.webyantra.net/2008/05/09/win-10k-grab-photos-of-mark-zuckerberg-in-india-and-guess-what-hes-upto/

One of the admired journalists in America, Kara Swisher, did a small report in Wall Street Journal/All Things Digital.

http://kara.allthingsd.com/20080509/where-in-the-world-is-mark-zuckerberg/

Abhimanyu Radhakrishnan, Editor-at-Large of India’s leading technology news and reviews portal Tech2.com and co-host of the weekly show ‘Tech 2.0' on CNBC-TV18 and CNN-IBN, gave it a mention.

http://www.techtonic.info/2008/05/16/z-back-from-india-expect-him-to-be-upto-some-mischief/

And many other websites and blogs picked up the story.

This publicity was unexpected,  but very welcome for a small gossip website like techgoss.com.  And it certainly gives us a few more ideas.  Perhaps,  we should do the same for Genpact big boss Pramod Bhasin,   Aegis CEO  Aparup Sengupta,  Satyam’s Ramalinga Raju and others.  Wait and watch now that the techgoss monster has been unleashed.

(Techgoss had run the following story on May 8, 2008)

Facebook: Rs. 10,000 reward
By Bala Shah

Facebook is the hottest social networking website in the world.   Started by American Mark Zuckerberg, it has 70 million members and growing at the impressive rate of tens of thousands every day.  Backed by Microsoft,  Facebook is valued at anything from $6 billion to $15 billion dollars.  The four countries with the highest use of Facebook are USA, UK, Canada and Turkey.  Australia, France, Sweden, Norway, Columbia and South Africa are the remaining top 10 countries. 

What is Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg, doing in India these days?  Rumor mills are working overtime mainly pointing to a business trip to launch Facebook India soon.  Others speak of a working holiday. As in the past, the Facebook PR team is only available to speak to a few chosen journalists.

Like all good businessmen, Mark is hoping to grab a large slice of the booming Indian market.   His social networking website competitors have a head start on Facebook, and there is much ground to cover.   Currently, the market leader in India is Google’s Orkut.  Hi5, Myspace and Linkedin are also popular in India.  But Facebook is in the top 3 in India.  Desi websites like Fropper, Minglebox and BigAdda have niche markets in the country.

Techgoss will offer Rs. 5000 for the first, exclusive photos of Mark Zuckerberg in India.  Another Rs. 5000 for a detailed story on his stay in India.  No questions asked.  Anonymity guaranteed.  Email editor@techgoss.com.