Google Unleashes Orkut Scrap Alerts, Kills Off Competition

Alas, it looks as if Google's latest feature may be the death knell that kills off some of my favorite Orkut hacks such as Orkut Alert.

Called Scraps Alert, this handy feature will inform users whenever a friend (or stranger) posts a message inside your scrapbook.

(Official Orkut Blog) With scrap alerts you can be on any orkut page and find out that you have received a scrap - that very minute. You could be browsing your friend's photos, and find out "hey! I just got a new scrap." Then you can click on the "Scrapbook" link to reply on the spot. This way you'll be free to explore all of orkut, comforted in the knowledge that when you have received a new scrap, you'll know about it that moment.

Google is quickly rolling this feature out to all of its users over the next few days, so if you do not see it now, chances are you will discover it by the beginning of next week.

My only complaint about the feature is that its colors clash with Orkut's blue background, making it an eyesore.

Hopefully someone from Google will rethink the Scrap Alert's color scheme, or better yet allow users to customize their own.

Note: When is Google going to do something similar for forums? (hint, hint)

PC World India: Orkut Voted Best Of The Best

It looks like the boys and girls at Google have reason to celebrate as Orkut has won an award for being the best of the Indian social networks!

(PC World India) Orkut however, has been voted as the best of the lot. Though it is a global site, there are hordes of Indians using it, making it one of the most popular social networking sites.

In terms of user experience it is the easiest to navigate, with its straight forward, uncomplicated and clean interface.

Orkut was facing some stiff competition from sites like Yaari, Minglebox, Rediff, Sulekha not to mention Google's favorite foes competitors Yahoo and Microsoft.

Despite the victory, the article criticized Orkut's weakness regarding business networking which (in my opinion) may have been an over site as there are various forums doing some serious networking on Orkut (at least employment wise).

Either way, congrats to the Orkut team! And let us know when your comment section is open (as I'm sure your fans would love to drop by and share their thanks).

Virginia Tech Shooting: Minal, Where Are You?

I do not know if anyone has been following the news in America lately, but if you have not heard there was a school massacre at Virginia Tech, which has shocked our entire nation, including me.

Although the media has released a partial list of those who were killed, there is some concern that one of the fallen may have been Minal Panchal (not to be confused with the other Minal Panchal) who apparently is not responding back to her scraps. :-(

(Times of India) An Indian student of the university who was caught in the shooting is missing, according to inputs from the student community in Virginia’s largest university.

There are many Indian students in this university. All other Indian students are safe, say inputs from the student community. [...]

According to reports from the campus, friends were searching for an Indian student, Minal Panchal, who has been reported missing.

Minal Panchal has her Orkut scrapbook full of prayers hoping she is fine and urgent pleas to respond and tell her near and dear ones that she is safe.

According to standard policy, the media and government do not release the names of the victim until the family members have been contacted. With that said, here's praying that she is still alive and well and that someone (hopefully Minal herself) can verify her safety.

Related: Two Virginia Tech forums posting memorials for the fallen.

If anyone knows if Minal is safe, let us all know please. May our prayers be with those families who have lost loved ones today. :-(

Update: Startup Dunia is pointing to an article over on IBN Live listing Minal among the dead. I have not seen her name on any official list online, (or other media outlets confirming her status) so I am for now assuming otherwise.

I've posted some messages on Facebook (popular among college students in the US) asking if anyone knows any info regarding her safety. If I find anything, I'll post about it here.

Update (4/18): I'm receiving more an more messages hinting that she is among the victims killed. She is not on any official list that I see, but people have put together a list on Wikipedia suggesting that she is one of the fallen.

Other Facebook members are also hinting at this as well. Keep her family in your prayers.

Update (4/18): Minal is now officially listed among the fallen according to media sources. I am going to do a tribute post detailing forums paying honor in her memory. I have visited several already, although if anybody knows of any I should mention let me know via scrapbook or in the comment section.

Google Launches Polls In Orkut

(Hat Tip: Danny Piccirillo)

The boys and girls at Orkut have done it again! Orkut users now have the ability to create polls within their forums, allowing users to rate everything from whose the cutest couple, where is the best place to travel to even politics (which will probably get very ugly in the next couple of weeks).

Here is more from the Googleplex:

(Official Google Blog) Now all you orkut users can create and post polls in any community that you are a member of. Just click a button in your favorite community, type in your question, and add pictures (if you like), and voila!—community members can
vote and leave comments on your question of choice. [...]

Login to orkut and see what your orkut friends think! You might not see this right away in your favorite communities, but the feature will be rolling out to everyone soon.

Although unexpected, I am not too surprised that Google has launched this feature, as it may help to resolve the "vote by scrap" option, which will definitely help out forums such as Mr. And Mrs. Orkut.

Google seems to be releasing this in smaller forums first, probably in order to keep the donut errors from reappearing (which I thankfully have not seen in a long, long time).

To add a poll to your forum simply click on the "create polls" link near the top of your forum...



...verify that you are human...



...type in a polling question...



...insert an image (optional but recommend)...



...select your language (very important!)...



...Add in the choices (with images if you desire)...



...decide how many options are available (I recommend multiple) as well as who can vote (whether community members or everyone on Orkut).



Last but not least, select how long a poll should last (I would recommend an end date, although you can leave it open until the end of time).



After your done, simple hit the create button (near the bottom) and your brand new spanking poll should appear.



To view the polls in a forum, simply click on the "view polls button on the side (as seen in this image below).



You can check out the poll I created by clicking here. I can see this feature becoming quite useful, (especially for future Must Have Orkut Hacks) although I'll have to wait about a week before this migrates to the rest of my forums.

Raging Against The Power Companies?

Although I have my sympathies for the people affected, I am not too sure on what they can do to resolve this unfortunate situation.

This made headlines awhile back, but I thought it was interesting enough to post here.

(Hindustan Times) What does a 21-year-old software student do when he is forced to live without electricity for four hours everyday? He waits for power to return, logs on to the Internet and gives a cyber call to everybody else in equal despair.

Now Girish Chhabria hopes that those joining his 'Anti Power Cut-Off' community on the popular networking website, Orkut, will be able to mobilise public opinion against load-shedding across the state.

Usually when something like this happens in America, the power company receives a lot of angry phone calls since our telephone lines are powered separately from our electricity (not to mention that everyone has a cell phone nowadays).

After a brief search on Orkut, I was unable to locate the forum exactly to verify whether or not it existed, although that may be due to it being taken down or that the community is not in English.

Either way, it is interesting to see how people are using Orkut to protest against the powers that be (pun not intended). Something like this in America would be unheard of, (strange as it may sound) as people generally use social networks to communicate, and aside from politics you really don't see us using the internet to protest against things like these.

Orkut Reunites Family After Kidnapping

(Hat Tip: Os Humanos Do Orkut and UnderGoogle)

For Brazilian readers, this info is probably old news, but with all of the negative press about losers creating fake Orkut profiles to humiliate others, it may sometimes be hard to notice the some of the good that happens as a result of Google's forums.

(INFO Online via Google Translation) The Orkut will have a special participation in the decorative clasp of anniversary of Cacilda Mire this year. It was for the site that the family found it, 72 years after having been kidnapped.

The destination of Cacilda moved when its mother, Carmen, suffered an accident and had to be some days hospitalized, Sonia counts to the niece Rossi. Solícitos, the baptism godfathers - a couple without children - had asked for to take account of the girl of two years. But when Carmen left the hospital, them if they had refused to return the goddaughter and they had changed themselves without leaving track. [...]

The years had been transferred until, in passed November, Larissa, one of the granddaughters of Cacilda, found Carlos Mire in the Orkut. The two had started to investigate the origins of the last name with the familiar ones until discovering that they were prime.

One month later, in the week between the Christmas and the New Year, Cacilda came the São Paulo to know the brothers, nephews and nephew-grandsons. It came back toward Rio De Janeiro, where deferred payment, with an album of photos since when he was baby and the promise of a decorative clasp in May, when it will complete 75 years, with all the congregated family.

When social networks reach critical mass in any region of the world, they can often be used to reunite lost friends and relatives (something my family is familiar with via MySpace).

Hopefully either a Google engineer or a marketing rep can find a way to contact this family, as the story would make a great addition to the "Stayin' beautiful on orkut" site.

Google Adds Video Playlist To Orkut

Google has recently added a new feature inside Orkut allowing users to highlight their favorite video's on YouTube and Google Video, a request IMHO has been long overdue.

(Official Google Blog) From now on, when you see that crazy video you feel is a must see for all your friends, now you can create your own video playlist on orkut to share with anyone who visits your profile. Just copy the video URL from your favorite YouTube or Google Video hosted videos, and your friends can enjoy watching your top videos through orkut. And because we know your friends will love your videos as much as you do, we've added an "Add to my favorites" button that lets you easily make your friend's favorite videos appear on your list.

To simply add a video to your playlist, simply click on "videos" link in your profile (as seen above) and then find the video you want to insert and paste it into the open field.



Click the "add" button and soon your video should appear.



Unfortunately you can not add any other video provider outside of Google Video or YouTube as you get a "Please enter a valid Google Video or YouTube url" error.

Hopefully the Orkut team will take a hint from Google Reader and open up the field to other sites as well.

Note: It looks like I'm going to be busy linking my favorite video's to my profile. If anyone else has any crazy video's let me know as I am a semi-huge YouTube fan.

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?

Google To Take A Bite Out Of Indian Crime?

It looks like Google will be partnering with Indian police officers in order to locate (and prosecute) cyber-criminals by giving them the ability to report offences in a user friendly way.

(WebProNews) According to Google the tool will be easy to use and no special training of the Indian police will be required. The spokesperson also said "This is part of Google continued efforts to collaborate with the authorities, doing so in a way that of course balances users' interests and the need for the proper legal process."

I'm pretty sure Google established something similar in Brazil when child predators began using the forums (which caused Brazil to launch a lawsuit against them).

Although their is always potential for abuse, I am fairly confident that this system will be used to fight crime and not censor certain viewpoints.

What's With India, Pakistan And The UFLA?

I read about this several days ago, but have not had the time to post about it until now.

Apparently a discussion (or rather more like a debate) regarding Assam on Orkut has reached the India Gazette who quotes several people within the UFLA forum from last year (although the debate seems to have carried over well into 2007).

I decided to shop around Orkut to see what this UFLA debate was all about. I came across a forum called We Hate UFLA in which Bhargab explained some brief history regarding the whole event.

Historically Assam has been one of the most peaceful regions where various races and religions have lived in peace. Shortly after seven states were carved out of Assam in the early 70s, and towards the late 70s, the Assam agitation began. This agitation, started by students, sought to bring to the government's notice, two things:

1) Assam being neglected by the Central government in creating employment opportunities, despite Assam producing so much oil and tea,

2) Illegal migration by Bangladeshis and the Assamese slowly losing livelihood and land to them. These being pertinent issues, the whole of Assam supported the causes. This agitation carried on for about a decade, turning violent at times, and resulted in the Assam accord of 1988, when the Congress government at the centre, led by Rajiv Gandhi, made some lofty promises.

Assam was overjoyed and the student leaders became overnight heroes. Somewhere along the same time (late 70s) the ULFA (United Liberation Front of Assam) was formed; their agenda was similar to the students, except that they always demanded an independent nation.

Apparently things seemed to have spiraled down from there, with the current situation that is happening in Assam playing in front of the world stage.

Although terrorism in any form (in my opinion) can not be justified, at least there is some diolouge starting between the pro-UFLA and anti-UFLA crowds.

A long time ago my (former) boss told me that he didn't "want to hear your problems, I want to hear your solutions." Hopefully these two groups can come to a solution that pleases everyone, (at least a little bit) as war isn't the most fun of things to experience on planet Earth.

Will Google Merge Orkut With JotSpot?

(Hat Tip: Googling Google)

It looks like Google has some major plans for Orkut in 2007, as the company may be planning to integrate JotSpot within Orkut.

(Internet News) "This year has been about getting our toe in the water. [Next year] will be about taking a lot more steps forward," said Girouard. [...]

Girouard also indicated that Google may use the fruits of its acquisitions of Web 2.0 companies such as wiki-builder Jotspot and social-networking site Orkut to build the framework for a collaboration platform.

For those of you who don't know, JotSpot is a wiki company (like Wikipedia but better) who allow users to create "rich web-based spreadsheets, calendars, documents and photo galleries." (via JotSpot FAQ)

Google bought out JotSpot awhile ago, and may be using them to help unify all of the Googlie services (Calendar, Picasa Web Albums, Docs & Spreadsheets, etc.) within Orkut.

If this is true (as the article is hinting) then Orkut may quickly become a favorite tool for businesses, artists and web geeks like me. ;-)

Note: I wonder if these added features will be enough to dethrone MySpace in the US?

Arrested For Fake Orkut Profile?

It was not for creating the profile, but rather what was on the profile itself.

Save yourself n save others has a photo from the Mumbai Mirror, although a search on their site does not pull up the story.

However, a quick Google search was able to reveal the full story online.

(Moneycontrol India) Youth misuses classmate's profile, posts lewd scraps

He is caught following the girl's complaint

A Bachelor of Management Studies (BMS) student of Thane was arrested on Thursday for creating a classmate's profile and uploading her picture with offensive messages on an online community site without her permission.

The cyber cell of the Thane police got into the act following a complaint by a girl that someone had created her profile on Orkut.com with her picture and posted lewd messages. Within 48 hours the culprit was nabbed.

The police seemed to have a difficult time locating the culprit as the Orkut server was located in Sweden (really?) Thanks to Yahoo!, they were able to track down the culprit's yahoo address and via IP locate his exact location within India.

Moral of the story: Don't harass girls on Orkut, and don't use Yahoo! if you do (although Google may report you as well).

Update: Fixed some grammer issues.

India Goes After Orkut? Plus...

I have been preoccupied with other things this past week, but hopefully I'll be able to post some info tonight, as well as interesting forums that I've discovered.

Anyways here are news worthy items you may have come across throughout this week (or maybe not).

Via India Uncut:

Indian court goes after Orkut

(DNA India) BANGALORE: Google's online community web site Orkut has run into trouble for "spreading hatred against the country".

The Aurangabad bench of the Bombay high court, comprising Justice AP Deshpande and Justice RM Borde, issued notice to Google last week following a public interest litigation initiated by 22-year-old advocate Yugant R Marlapalle.

I think they are probably referring to this forum. The government seems to have some rule against creating digital "offences or contravention committed outside India by any person" on their books.

I would post my thoughts on this here, but Ranjeet Adkar pretty much sums it up for me.

For the "plus" note, I discovered a website that allows you to "connect" with Orkut in a superior manner, although I have to see whether its either a proxy, a phisher stealing Google Accounts or just another cool Orkut hack (hopefully the latter).

Will post an update on this when I find the time.

Suing Google Because Of Fake Profiles?

Apparently some people have no sense of humor.

(SportsNetwork.net) Barrichello, who isn't a member of the Orkut community, took exception to the false profiles on the site, as well as the improper use of his name and image. Thanks to a decision by the civil court in Sao Paulo, Google will now have to take off all the profiles listed.

Orkut now have seven days to comply, or face fines of £270 a day. Rubens has already won an action against the company, back in July of this year, but it has not been fulfilled. As such, Barrichello's lawyers have also asked for an additional £210,000 in damages for pain and suffering.

Pain and suffering from fake profiles? Probably more like gain and sacking funds from a company with deep pockets.

Orkut already discourages fake profiles of celebrities and you can always report them as bogus (or at least report it to these forums).

There are many fake profiles on Orkut, and simply calling a lawyer because your feelings were hurt is probably a great way to waste judicial time and setback online media as well (not to mention making yourself appear immature).

Is Orkut Catching Up To MySpace?

That would be a good thing since it would put Google's social network on a path towards social networking king (as they enjoy being number one in everything).

Over on the Read / Write Web blog, Alex posts some interesting graphs showing Orkut sliding into the number two position.

Here is their summary of the competition between Orkut and MySpace:

From the charts we clearly see that Orkut is gaining, but why? The feature set and the user interface are not impressive. The answer has to be its affiliation with Google... [...]

But perhaps it is not just that Brazilian users dominate, but also the attitude and confidence of Orkut. [...]

MySpace is an undisputed leader on all counts, but Orkut is on the rise and it's moving very rapidly. [...] All and all it looks like the battle for the gold (MySpace, Orkut) and for the bronze (the others) is going to heat up.

According to Read / Write Web, Orkut has around 49 million users, which is almost half that of MySpace.

Although they still have a long way to go in order to catch up to MySpace, Google seems to finally be busy improving the Orkut servers, as one can tell by the growing list of dead orkut hacks and programs (hey, you either have to adapt or die).

Note: Google's rival Yahoo! seems to be jumping into the social network club and is considering buying out Facebook, a story that Inside Facebook is following very closely.

Update: Ionut, from Google Operating System posted on Google Blogoscoped that Alexa's numbers are flawed. Visiting HitWise reveals Orkut to be less popular than Friendster. Sad.

Google Responds To Pedophile Issue

After it was reported that Brazilian child predators were using Orkut, an issue bringing Google in conflict with the Brazilian authorities, Google has provided a response back towards the media.

(Google Watch) In response to an inquiry about the situation in Brazil, a Google spokesperson wrote that the firm had been in contact with Brazilian authorities.

The spokesperson also described a number of proactive steps Google takes to police Orkut. For instance, when Google learns of instances of child porn, expressions of racial hatred, etc., the company will move "aggressively" to remove the content. [...]

"It is our intention to be as cooperative in the investigation and prosecution of crimes as we possibly can, while being careful to balance the interests of our users, our business and the request from the authorities," the spokesperson wrote.

"There are millions of communities for Orkut members to join, including hundreds of communities dedicated to education, peace, health, the environment and ways to eradicate poverty," she continued. "However, just as in the offline world, there will always be individuals or speech in online communities that certain people find offensive or inappropriate."

I don't think that the Brazilian authorities will be happy with the response, but since it violates both Orkut's Terms of Service as well as Brazilian law a simple warrant on a specific user should be enough.