All Things Digital

Apparently, an Indian tech news site called TechGoss has its dander up about a visit Facebook Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg (pictured here) has been making to that country.

And, for information related to news of why the social-networking czar is in India, TechGoss is offering 10,000 rupees–or $240.17—specifically, 5,000 for exclusive photos of him there and 5,000 for a detailed story on his stay in India.

Currently, Facebook is the No. 3 player in India, whose social-networking scene is dominated, incredibly, by Google’s Orkut.

Asked the post: “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.”

Well, Facebook PR was not helpful to me either, but that does not stop BoomTown in its greedy and ceaseless quest for rupees!

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.

In fact, some at Facebook are jokingly calling Zuckerberg’s month-long jaunt abroad “Vision Quest,” as the 23-year-old travels completely solo from place to place.

So in India, it is not some major initiative yet and more a getting-to-know-you visit, although Facebook will surely need to compete more handily in the growing market there.

Namasté, Mark, and safe travels!

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

Once it’s out (and sooner than later, we are guessing), we’ll all be able to consider whether Google’s new Maka-Maka project–a way to create an open social graph over the Web that is third-party apps friendly–is a real attempted assault on the Facebook platform or more of a way to widely spread the gospel of social networking (and, thus, an assault on the Facebook platform).

In any case, it should be interesting with Facebook’s clear lead and also, well, that gigantic bag of cash from Microsoft (and more to come).

But, until then, here’s a very smart take on the rollout of Maka-Maka by Erick Schonfeld, TechCrunch’s most promising addition so far, of what Google’s true aims could be:

That’s where the bigger plan for Maka-Maka comes into play. Maka-Maka is very strategic for Google. Responsibility for it goes all the way up to Jeff Huber, the VP of engineering in charge of all of Google’s apps. Huber is on record as saying that the way Google plans to compete is by using the Web as the platform instead of trying to lock developers into Google’s own platform. One way it will do that from the start is by creating two-way APIs so that any app created for Google can be taken to other Web sites. (Whether this will extend to actual user-profile data within Orkut or elsewhere inside Google remains to be seen because of privacy issues, but the apps themselves will be portable). And data from other social sites will be able to be imported into Google’s social apps as well.

“The bigger vision is to combine all of Google’s apps and services through Maka-Maka. Google already has so much data on you, depending on how many Google apps you already use. It just needs to bring everything together. Your contacts are in Gmail. Your feeds are in Google Reader. Your IM buddy list is in Gtalk. Your upcoming events are in Google Calendar. Your widgets are in iGoogle. And don’t forget about your search history. Over time, Google will connect all of these together in different ways, along with data about you from other social services across the Web, and give developers access to the social layer, tying all of these apps together underneath. The real killer app for Google is not to turn Orkut into a Facebook clone. It is to turn every Google app into a social application without you even noticing that you’ve joined yet another social network.”