Coming face-to-face virtually

LUDHIANA: When the most significant tech development of the decade-- social networking sites-- took the world by storm, the Manchester of India could not have been untouched by the wave. But, the net-savvy of Ludhiana are still hooked up to Facebook, the most prominent player among all.
Though a few have their accounts on other social interfaces such as Twitter and Linkedin, they aren't really active on these sites, which offer a varied avenue for professional and personal communication.From marketing professionals to those in service industry and from businessmen to students, each have their own reason to like the virtual presence that allows them to connect with dear ones at far off places and advertise or market their professional capabilities.
An agency development manager with an insurance company Jaspreet Singh Grewal made a profile on Facebook about 3 years ago. "I mostly communicate with my outstation friends through Facebook. Their updates let me know about their well being and I like to go through the links posted by them, particularly those on health and lifestyle.''
Harjinder Singh, 26, owner of Hot Breads in Sarabha Nagar, has been promoting his business through Facebook and Twitter. He says, "Besides communicating with friends, social networking sites have helped us tremendously in promoting our business. We have 4,000 members on our Facebook account and 2,025 followers on Twitter.
For students, social networking is more about gathering a vast network of friends and a means to know more about the world and share what they find interesting.
Amarpal Singh, 18, a resident of Civil Lines and a BBA student at GGN Khalsa College says, "It is easy to communicate with friends through these social networking sites as almost everyone is a frequent user. Besides communicating with friends, the fact that people keep on posting new information ranging from current affairs to health and history to travel comes handy.''