Get Connected...the Orkuttian way... Review on Orkut

*History:

*Google has this policy of 70-20-10, wherein 70% of the time employees are working on a Google core business task, 20% of the time employees can work on a related project of a core business task, and 10% of the time on an unrelated project using company time and resources. Orkut Buyukkokten was one such employee working in Google in the year 2004 in which he spent 10% of this time developing his own version of already existing online social networking websites like Friendster and Hi5.

As the number of members started growing Eric Schmitd- CEO Google, saw the potential behind the phenomenon of online social networking and took over Orkut and Mr. Buyukkokten it seems is paid a substantial royalty.

Over the period of 2 and a half years the network has grown to almost 39 million members, almost 59% of them belong to Brazil(no-one knows why), India has 12.5% the USA has 17% of them. Several bouquets and brickbats later, Orkut is still going strong and now become the numero uno in the online social networks spawning a lot of clones- Fropper among them.

What it is all about:

What is it about Orkut that 39, 000, 000 people around the world and almost 4, 900, 000 Indians are its members?

It is all about the eternal human urge to connect, to socialize, to find old friends, to make new friends, to join communities etc.

Ever wondered what happened to all your school buddies, or that girl you had a crush on when you were in college, or the manager from hell in your first job all those years back, well chances are you might find them all on Orkut.

How do we become Orkutians:

Well as it is with all online conundrums you need to register, but as with Google’s invitations only policy with GMail, Orkut too is for the moment an invitational only based website. Also people with a GMail account get a direct dekho into the proceedings. While creating the account, you could also update your interests like favorite music/musicians, movies, books, sports, passions, also professional profile(education, job description etc.) personal profile and things like age, location and the reason you are there on Orkut( friends, dating etc.), there is also an album where you can update 12 pictures of your choice and a display photo which would be displayed with your Orkut ID, once you are done with all this, we are ready to go. You are now, at least technically speaking - an Orkuttian with a scrapbook and the power to scrap.

*Features:

The Good.

One of the prime features of Orkut is the presence of communities and the ability to create new ones. The communities are based on many facets, for example it can be based on schools, colleges, companies etc or also broadly categorized as per colonies, city and country, communities are also based on tastes in music, fan clubs, poetry, gadgets. etc. the list is endless. So all you need to do is search for a community like your old school for example and voila! chances are you will find it and also chances are more than probable that you will find your old school buddies as members on it. Also new friends can also be made based on similar tastes or dissimilar interests(for those who believe that opposites attract). Also present are forums in each community in which members discuss any related or unrelated topic. Some communities maybe moderated i.e. needs the permission of a moderator/s for you to be a member or post a topic, but most communities are free of moderation. Reminders to those birthdays of friends that we tend to forget and other notable features include writing testimonials for your friends to impress upon them your writing skills and show them you care, group messaging, etc. Unlike other networking websites Orkut is rather easy to use and navigate and the experience is very enjoyable.

The Bad

Bad Bad Server…No Donut for you. This is a message that one is getting used to on Orkut during the evening times as the server is not able to take the load of all those users logging in from Brazil and usually hangs. Addictive as hell if you get a little too interested in the whole networking thing. The new Orkut is now starting to look commercial with lot more ads coming in, I think we owe that to the Google takeover, I still remember the good old days when there were no ads on any page of  any website.

The Ugly

Freedom of Expression is given a lot of freedom, as hate communities outnumber the love ones. Orkut has been receiving a lot of bad press lately over the issue of communities like We Hate India etc. Well though we live in a age of conscience and understanding, we still allow hate to permeate to the core of our psyche- even online ones. Misuse of profiles( some users claim to have 100’s of profiles under different IDs), third person pictures are used and posted with vulgar tags. Also the presence of members who designate themselves as Trolls( the writer was an infamous member of the Troll community as well), well Trolls are members who go about community discussion forums flaming and cussing other members or the topic, generally to the disapproval/hues/disgust of the more “serious” posters. Usually the Trolls are harmless and just leave by themselves or are thrown out by the moderator(if he is awake and online). Also the presence of those “wannabe friendship?” guys who sometimes pester female members. If they get too much to handle you could always click the ignore user option.

The Don’t Knows

The lack of privacy is an issue that is unto the judgment of the user whether he/she likes it or not. Your scrapbook where your friends scrap things is open for all to view and scrap. This seemingly absence of privacy sometimes makes for hilarious after reading and for some confrontations too. I think Orkut is working on an option to give viewing and scrapping rights only to people on your friend list soon.

Overall…the last word

Love it or hate it, Orkut is here to stay and is growing at phenomenal rates. For those who are looking to stay in touch with your friends or get in touch with old ones, there is nothing like Orkut. For those who are looking to make new friends, its just another option present with the seemingly endless other options. But for those a little squeamish on privacy issues stick to Yahoo Messenger Chat. A word of warning for those who love it, it gets addictive so considered yourself warned. And yeah.you people at Google, feed the poor server some donuts so that it doesnt go Bad Bad all the time.;-)