World’s largest selfie goes for Guinness Record
Selfies are increasingly common are hardly ever newsworthy–but selfies creating or breaking records definitely are. A selfie taken last week on a Windows phone in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, claims to be the world’s largest selfie ever taken–a record it may have created itself.
In a bid to capture the world’s largest selfie, Microsoft Bangladesh in association with Coca-Cola organized a campaign that saw at least 1,151 people shot in a single selfie. The organizers required the selfie enthusiasts to sign in for the sake of a head count.
The program was aimed at marketing Microsoft’s newly-introduced Windows device in Bangladesh, Nokia Lumia 730, which the Redmond-based company is touting as “made for selfies.”
In their official Facebook page, the company credited this photo as the largest selfie ever. Official recognition from Guinness has yet to come.
“The Microsoft Lumia team in Bangladesh is actively engaged with Guinness World Records to gain authentication of the selfie record,” Mr. Sandeep Gupta, a general manager of Microsoft emerging Asia told this journalist.
Apparently, there emerged a contender to Microsoft’s claim the same week.
Some 2,000 rabbis were reported to have taken part in a group selfie after attending the International Conference of Chabad-Lubavitch 
Emissaries in Brooklyn, New York. Toronto-based Shalom Life reported that a “camera” mounted on a five-meter-long selfie stick was used to capture the photo.
Unlike the Bangladeshi picture, the number of emissaries captured was not confirmed by the concerned authority. In addition, the Rabbi photo appears to fall short of the definition of selfie found in Oxford’s English Dictionary, that says, “[A selfie is] a photographic self-portrait; esp. one taken with a smartphone or webcam and shared via social media.”
After Ellen DeGeneres wrangled to take a selfie of a scrum of Hollywood megastars during this year’s Academy Award that set a new record for most retweeted photo in history, analysts suggested that the selfie could be used as a subtle way of brand promotion.
Whether or not the Dhaka photo was inspired by the media buzz created by Ellen’s Oscar selfie, Microsoft appears to have undertaken an experiment a new era of marketing strategy in which the selfie is thought to be a game changer.
By Arafat Kabir