Self-Introduction and an interesting branding example

Introduction:

Hi, My name is Namita Narain. I am from India. I am a second year Masters student. My background is in Computer Science and anything to do with technology fascinates me. I am perfectly and normally noctural and neurotic :) And hence, I always tell my friends that I am the person to call if there is a 3 AM emergency! I love hiking, trekking, working out and this is a picture from one of my Bay area hikes (Note: I am a true Illini Fan). I am doing the Yosemite Half Dome hike in the next few weeks and I am excited and full of nervous anticipation.
I am happy to see so many new faces this semester and I hope to know you all a lot better! Ciao :)

Interesting Branding Example - Google+:

Google unveiled its top secret social network on June 28th and it already has 10 million plus users. So what does Google+ do right? Well, to begin with, it is trying to establish its own space without demolishing Facebook - something that many other social networking engines like MySpace did not quite learn. Social media thrives on interoperability and people at Google know this. You may not be able to incorporate your G+ stream on Facebook but vice-versa is very much possible. How did Facebook respond? Well, the day G+ was launched, there were more updates on Facebook about G+ than anything else. Soon, Facebook users started exporting their contacts to G+ and once Facebook realised this, they withdrew that option. Of course, there are ways to do it but not quite simply as before. It is unlikely that Facebook users would switch to G+ but if they are forced to choose, they just might. Just like twitter hashtags can be used to incorporate your twitter posts on Facebook, similarly, Facebook should have allowed G+ stream to be a part of Facebook update. It would take time to see how this plays out. Of course, meanwhile, Facebook has gone ahead and incorporated a video chat option (but only with one person unlike G+ hangout that allows close to ten users to be live at the same time)

This is a significant event in the lifecycle of social media. G+ is in fact in its beta testing phase and has plans to actually roll out a G+ profile option for businesses. In fact, a few large corporations have expressed interest in using G+ for their customer service needs. What fascinates me is G+ has relied completely on beta testing to brand its product. This subtle campaign took the social media world by a storm. And now, avid fans are sending G+ invites out(One person can send a total of 150), blogging and tweeting about it.

So here is what I liked. Google tested the product in-house, and then reached out to early adopters for beta testing. They knew who the early adopters were, because they know who writes about them – and where they stand in Google's own search results. High-ranking websites carry a certain amount of influence, after all.

Once you do let these early-adopting bloggers start writing about your product, they're going to generate plenty of buzz within their own audience. This is where Google got something else right, which they've done before: rather than immediately opening Google+ to everyone, they gave their early adopters invitations to spread to their friends. Google did that with Gmail, and this immediately created a demand; the very fact that you couldn't just join the service, but had to receive an invitation, made it special.

G+ rocks. And how!