Adsense For Orkut Forum Owners? Good Idea, Bad Idea?

So with the first month of 2008 just about over, and Google eagerly taking suggestions for Orkut, I was wondering whether or not it might be a good idea for Google to give community owners the option to insert Google Adsense (or any ads of their choice) on forums that they manage.

While this idea probably has been discussed before (back in the day when Orkut had ads before they removed them after users found them to be annoying) it might make sense as an option for Google, especially since the social networking wars are starting to heat up.

Since Google already shares ad revenue with YouTube users (not to mention users of Blogger, Google Pages, and the future Google Knol), why not do the same thing for forum owners?

I think the only reason Google may hesitate in doing this would be because of spammers (who have a habit of ruining everything), although they could set the bar very high by allowing forums with 10,000 plus members and heavy traffic to opt in (sort of like what YouTube did).

So what do you guys (and gals) think? Good idea, or bad idea?

Happy Birthday Orkut! (Four Years Strong)

It looks as if Orkut has turned four years old this day, and has come a long way since launching its very first forum.

(Official Orkut Blog) You may have noticed that the orkut logo looked a little different when you signed in today -- and if the four candles on the cake didn't give it away already, it's our fourth birthday. That's right, 2/5ths of a decade ago, orkut launched. It has grown up pretty fast, with many more features, communities, friends and photos since it first opened as an invite-only community. Whether you've been with us for years or days, thank you for being a part of the orkut community!

Excluding blogging and usenet forums (such as Google Groups), Orkut was the very first social network that signed onto, way back in the day when social networks were generally seen as merely the "geek thing" to do (blogging was just catching on back then).

While I have also signed up with dozens of others, ranging from MySpace to Facebook, Orkut still remains one of the most user friendly social networks out there, and probably one of the major ones that still has not "maxed out" (or reached its full potential).

Anyways, congrats to the Google Orkut team! I am looking forward to an improved Orkut for 2008.

Note: Hopefully I'll be able to pick up the posting frequency (not to mention respond to everyone's messages) once I rearrange my schedule due to work, other blog duties (elsewhere), and politics (they are campaigning like crazy in my area).

Since I am going to be purchasing an iPhone in the future, perhaps Orkut could create an iPhone friendly page? (like iphone.orkut.com or something to that affect).

Orkut Declares War On Scrapbook, Forum Spam

After enabling users to block unwanted messages in their Orkut scrapbooks, it looks as if Google is taking more aggressive measures to remove spam from community forums, as well as scrapbooks.

(Official Orkut Blog) While communities provide a great medium for people to come together and share ideas through forums, polls and events, lots of communities can be the target of spam. Until now, if you were not the community owner or moderator, you couldn't remove the spam if you saw it. Well that has changed. Now you will be able to click "report spam" to specific topics or items in communities that are spammy, even if you are not the community moderator or owner. This will help us take down spam faster and take the pressure off the community owners and moderators. You can also report spam on specific scraps that you see in your own scrapbook.

Google is probably doing this in response to the rise in scrapbook spam, which has been increasing due to the various "scrap all your friends" hacks available in certain programs or by various scripts.

Before this feature, users had to actually visit the offending person's profile and write up a complaint, which was 30 seconds too long in my honest opinion.

Now all a user has to do is check mark the offending scrap...



...and report it as spam.



Note: Since more often than not my scrapbook is spared from spam attacks, I decided to use a scrap from Fire Ball as an example...even though its not spam.

The one for forums is similar, although Google may want to enable users to report individual community posts instead of the whole thread as spam--unless Google feels like reading the entire conversation. ;-)