Orkut Buyukkokten Visits Brazil?

Post Updated! Scroll down for the goodies!

This is not too surprising since over half of Orkut's 50 million users are from Brazil, with the US and India coming in second and third place respectively.

Marcelo Sant'Iago gives us the details:

(Multilingual Search) Orkut Buyukkokten, the engineer behind Google’s social network website, is visiting Brazil for the first time.

He is in Rio de Janeiro this week, and will visit Sao Paulo (including a breakfast at GooglePlex with a select group of clients) next week and after that Belo Horizonte, where Google has a research&development facility.

I am not exactly sure if this really is Orkut's first time in Brazil (didn't he visit Brazil before with Eric Schmidt?) although I could be wrong. Anyways, Marcelo has a photo of the founder on his personal blog, (English translation over here).

I wonder what "wild and crazy" things Orkut will do in a land where his "pet project" outshines the mighty Google?

Update (4/1): It appears that Orkut surprised a bunch of tech students while traveling to a Brazilian University. (Hat Tip: Ersan)

(Planeta COPPE [English Version]) The Manager of Product of the Google, Orkut Buyukkokten, author of the site that takes its name, was in the COPPE, day 28/03, pronouncing lecture for about 200 students of engineering of computation in the audience of the institution. Programmed to attend the lecture of an engineer of the Google, the students had been surprised at the presence of Orkut, creator of what today the biggest site of relationships in the world is considered, that confirmed its popularity in the end of the event, distributing autographs and posando for photos to the side of the students.

Here is an image of the founder with the Academic Director of the COPPE, Fernando Rochinha. (Image Credit: Planeta COPPE)



One thing about the founder, is that he sure knows how to dress! I wonder where he got his shirt from?

Orkut Opens SMS For Brazilians

After blogging about how great it would be for Google to open up Orkut for our mobile phones, it looks like the search engine giant has taken the first steps to making this a reality.

That is if you are Brazilian.

(Official Google Blog) With orkut's new SMS feature, you can scrap your friends, look up their contact information and receive scrap notifications. Now you can send scraps from the bus, bar or bathroom, and your friends can get notified of those scraps when on bicycle, beach or bed. Along with the standard orkut features, we've included a few hidden goodies for the adventurous to find.

This week, orkut SMS will become available to orkut members in Brazil who use Claro as their mobile service provider. When the feature becomes available to you, a message will be displayed when you sign in to your account. We hope to expand soon to other mobile service providers in Brazil and around the globe.

This is both really exciting and depressing at the same time. If anybody from Brazil has screen shots of this, let me know! (as I would be very interested in seeing how this would look on a cell phone)

Note: I wonder when they are going to open this up for American and Indian users?

Inside Orkut Brazil (Belated Launch)

There appears to be another blogger focusing on Orkut on Blog*Spot! Introducing Inside Orkut Brazil!

Started by Luis Builherme, this blog focuses on Orkut (just like mine) but is in Portugese (which is helpful for our lovable Brazilian friends).

I came across this when Luis first scrapped me about the site, but have not had time to highlight about it until now. After coming across my blog over here, he was inspired to start an Inside Orkut for Brazilians.

And it looks like he is already providing some very useful information, warning users to beware of this Orkut copycat site that will actually upload a virus on your computer (perhaps Google should check this out).

I encourage everyone to subscribe to his feed, and if anyone know of any other Orkut related blogs out there, let me know by post here below.

Note: Adding this weblog underneath Orkut Related on the left sidebar.

Google's Orkut To Brazil: Make Love, Not War

Update: Published on The Blog Herald

(Hat Tip: MichaelZimmer.org)

After being threatened with fines from Brazil, Google has agreed to hand over personal information regarding criminal activities stored on Orkut's servers.

(Washington Post) "What they're asking for is not billions of pages," said Nicole Wong, Google associate general counsel. "In most cases, it's relatively discrete -- small and narrow."

Google released a statement yesterday saying it was complying with the Brazilian court orders following a ruling Thursday by a Brazilian judge that threatened Google with a fine of $23,000 a day for noncompliance.

Orkut, a social networking site designed by one of Google's employee's was facing legal action from Brazil who was furious over Google's apparent refusal to release info that could identify child predators, racists and those promoting homophobia.

For law enforcement officials, this is a victory over cyber crime, but for privacy experts, this is yet another sign that Google is becoming more evil and a continuing trend of major Internet companies giving into "big government."

Brazil May Close Google Office Because Of Orkut

The government of Brazil is really getting upset at Google. Orkut, a social networking service created by Google (and "the MySpace" of the region) is attracting various bad elements within the forums, and Google is apparently being uncooperative with Brazilian authorities.

(People's Daily Online) Brazil's Federal Prosecution Service on Monday announced that it would move to close the operation of U.S.-based web group Google in the country.

According to the public entity, Google has not followed court orders, determining the company to cooperate with the investigation on crimes concerning its social-networking service Orkut since June. Google has denied the charges.

Orkut has become a favorite among Brazilians, especially youngsters. However, the Federal Court believes that there are communities and personal profiles on Orkut, who exchange information on drugs and even traffic them.

It is no secret that drug dealers are using Orkut to solicit, communicate and traffic illegal drugs as their are certain forums dedicated towards this type of activity.

Previously the Brazilian government was upset about child predators using the Orkut service, although Google seems to have cooperated somewhat with the authorities in that arena.

Google's main concern seems to be user privacy, although their actions are being perceived by Brazil's government as protecting those who violate their countries laws.

Brazil Threatening To Sue Google Over Orkut?

With the government of Brazil determined to reign in child predators where ever they may hide, Google may be in for the legal fight of its Brazilian life.

Apparently they are not happy with the way Google has been providing information on potential suspects, and are seriously considering taking the search engine giant to court.

(People's Daily Online) Brazil's Federal Prosecution Service said Tuesday that it will sue Google Inc. this week, because the company has refused to provide information about users of its social-networking service Orkut, as determined by decisions of a local court. [...]

Federal Prosecution Service officials said Google will be subject to paying fines and even be expelled from Brazil, if it continues to disregard the court's decisions.

According to the People's Daily, Orkut has already provided information regarding eight investigations, although the government seems to be furious over the other 60 Google is keeping secret.

Despite being illegal for them to use, many minors have already created profiles on Orkut, which is attracting these child predators in the first place.

Although a ban by Brazil may not affect Orkut (aside from membership activity), it would be a major financial setback for Joga.com (a partnership between NikeFootball.com and Google) as the site was designed for the Brazilian soccer fans (Joga Bonito means "Play Beautifully" in Portuguese).

Over Zealous Soccer Fanatics?

(Hat Tip: Net Family News)

Perhaps I should rename the title "Over Zealous Football Fans" as football is the international version of what Americans call soccer.

Anyways, it seems as if users were using Orkut's service to network a street fight, all in the name of soccer. More from South Africa's IOL.co.za:

A day after Brazilian police stopped a fight between rival football fans organised on a popular Google website, authorities clashed with the Internet giant over access to user information to prevent crimes. [...]

Brazilian authorities monitoring online messages for possible crimes want the US company to turn over users' personal information to help stop crimes an abuse like the street battle between the football fans.

All that fuss over a silly ball. It would have been better if they were on Joga.com (developed by Google's Orkut and Nike), as you can at least upload video as well as talk smack.