Personalized Forum Link Addresses On Orkut?

Some of you may have noticed this, but then again some of you may have not.

Over at the Google Blog, I noticed that the Orkut team had enabled one forum (out of hundreds of thousands on their server) to have a personalized link address instead of the usual eight digit number that is dealt to all community owners.

Here is the original paragraph:

(Official Google Blog) Cricket discussions that started in the elevator can spill over to the Orkut network. Especially this season, in association with us, cricket expert and former Indian cricket captain Krish Srikkanth has created his own community on Orkut to interact with cricket lovers, debate the latest happenings and just share cricket views.

It seems as if Google is playing favorites by creating a personalized link to Krish Srikkanth's forum (http://www.orkut.com/worldcupwithkrish) which not only redirects to the forum within Orkut (which can be viewed over here) but also is viewable to the public without the need of logging into Orkut.

It is baffling to me that a forum this small (660 members and counting) was able to receive this privilege when other communities much larger are locked into the "eight digit code" identifying the order of when they were created.

Hopefully Google opens this up to other communities on Orkut (whether for free or for a fee) as it would give a more personal touch to the forums, not to mention help separate it from its competitors (i.e. Facebook).

Exit question: If Orkut offered this to users for a small fee, would you be willing to pay for something like this? Or should Google simply offer this for free?

Endangered Species: Crazy American Soccer Fans

Jen Sala over at Orkut Media has an interesting article about why Americans are generally not interested in soccer.

American sport enthusiasts are the poster children for attention deficit disorder. We like big numbers; we like clear-cut winners; we like action and aggression marked by runs, touchdowns, baskets, and goals, peppered perhaps with the occasional fistfight. We like tangible action that we can read about in the box scores the next day. We don't appreciate the drama and struggle of a zero-zero game. [...]

I personally think that American soccer fans aren't nearly dedicated enough as Latin American or European fans. We need more painted people, more people dressed up like complete freaks. I would like to see more fans covered in greasy head to toe red, white, and blue. We need more people in giant wigs.

What Americans like about soccer is that it is what I call "a hype sport." Basically, it is a sport that, like basketball, a player can do a lot of cool tricks, have fun and use their skills to out smart the opponent.

Unfortunately unless those tricks are giving your team a massive lead (or showing up early on the score board) then the game loses interest, making the Golf channel much more appealing.

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.

Nike And Google Launch Social Network

(Hat Tip: iPlot)

I do not know what is more surprising--Nike getting into the "social networking" jungles or that Adidas did not develop this first. Either way, I am glad they at least chose Google.

(BusinessWeek) Nike and Google, hoping to take social networking to a new realm, have quietly launched the first invitation-only Web site for soccer-mad fans around the world. Joga.com went live late last week and will soon be running in 140 countries and 14 languages.

The two companies have been working on the site for the past eight months and are expected to publicly unveil it this week, BusinessWeek has learned. Nike is supplying the content, and Google is the technical partner. But the site looks similar to other social-networking outlets such as News Corp.'s MySpace.

I have already requested an invite inside of Joga.com, which is a social network soley dedicated to the topic of football (aka soccer for those in the US).

You may need a Google Account in order to gain access within...I wonder if the football/soccer forums are aware of this?

Superbowl Champions (Steelers)

Although I have to admit I was rooting for the Sea Hawks, they unfortunately lost to a better team.

Here are some victory shouts from the Pittsburgh Steelers forum.

• Pedro Arthur: superbowl championssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss


• Maria: YAY!


• Sourabh: Yesss the trophy is safely on the BUS to Pittsburgh


• Chinqis: the CHAMPIOOOOOOOOONSSSSSSSSSS


• Lucas: YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

Pedro (not the one from above) gives a shout out to some friends or fans who helped make it happen.

thanks ben, bus, ward, randle el, porter, foote, polamalu, bill and the like for this great victory, we did it!!!!!!

Great game guys! Hopefully my team (The New England Patriots) can make it back to the top again.

Aside from the game, was it me or were most of the commercials lame this year?