It all started for me when Google had something to offer. My classmates in Engineering College told me of a something called Orkut. It was fast becoming one of the emerging trendy keywords, and was supposedly the successor of email. The next generation of communication, as we call it, was here. It was late 2004 when I joined Orkut, and have been an active subscriber to it [ except for I deleted my account twice because of spam reasons ].

A few years went by, and my friends list exponentially increased till it was ready to explode. And then, in late 2007, I came to know of a something called Facebook. I was reluctant to join because of all the hassle involved to invite all my friends there, and importing contacts, and yes maintaining the account by participating in the discussions and replying to the posts. I had already been through quite a lot of other social networks like hi5, gazzag, myspace, bebo, multiply et al. My relation with all of the others remained limited to just a couple of months, as I retained my loyalty to orkut.

And then, something happened. All of a sudden, I heard all the social network gurus, the “in” crowd of the blogosphere – from Michael Arrington to Om Malik, John Chow to Darren Rowse- everyone was on Facebook. It was the place where everyone was there. And besides these people, my contact list from orkut had by now started sending me invites for Facebook. After a few reluctant logins to the Facebook, I got used to the interface. Long before I could realise, from celebrities to my local chai-walla to even my University professor – everyone was on Facebook.

Which brings me to this – Windows Live Planet. Really, who needs yet another Social Network in 2009? I do not. I am too old to keep shifting base. I am too used to the Blue and White interface to shift over to the Aero-Flow based Live presentation. I do not want my ‘space’ to look like I am living in an MSN World. And yes, I did check out the initial questionnaire, and it is filled with absolutely unfunny, non-sensical answers to some of the most badly placed questions. The only thing I liked about Live Planet was nothing.

One last thing, the Self-Cool image being posed on the homepage looks excruciating. And the tag-line – Match And Make New Friends – makes it feel like it is not a Social Network but a Matrimonial Matchmaker. The guy with the curly hair reminds me of Justin Guarini [ which is not a good thing ] and the forced usage of “Whats up” seems like a conscious attack to the teenage target audience. Also wtf is meant by the line: Find ur Twin?

I don’t know why I have so much negative about Live Planet. Hmm, may be because its 2009, and its TOO LATE for a Social Network to be born. But again, if I find everyone else is moving in that direction [ as in Windows Live Planet] , who am I stop? But do you really think people will adopt this new Social Network? My prediction- NO!

In the latest post on Orkut Blog, Orkut’s Vlad Patryshev talks about the new privacy features that Orkut has brought into the forefront. We aready have been seeing the changes in the add-friends section. The appearance of the check box and manage friends section. The blog says,

In addition to having your privacy settings to be just “friends” or “everyone,” you can now select also “friend of friends.” We feel that this is a good choice for those of you who may wish to share your information with an extended group of friends without making it public to everyone. We hope this additional flexibility helps you manage your experience on orkut better.

What could be next from their sleeve? Guess, we just have to wait and watch. At Techkeyla, we definitely are watching.

Just like the introductory Facebook message which invited us to install more and more apps. Well, for me, it was high time. Remember OpenSocial Alliance had been formed and announced way back in the 1800s, I mean in November last year. And now, it’s more than 3 months over of 2008. Still, I hadn’t seen any signs of anything to do with OpenSocial out here on Orkut. (A brief tutorial for all those who do not know about Orkut. It is one of the most visited Social Networking sites by Google, on which the entire online society of India, Pakistan and Brazil resides. And that means, it has a HUGE user base. It’s true that Facebook has invaded a space which was ruled previously by MySpace, and arguably still is. But then, Orkut is HUGE in this part of the world, much like Bebo is still much larger in the UK than any other social network.) The brief ask the question addition was at best an annoying and minuscule addition which didn’t even qualify as an application. But the wait is now over. The apps are here for you , and this is where they are. The page is called the App Directory, and the list looks like the following:

(Click here for the full screen snapshot)The List of Apps include some familiar ones and some not-so familiar ones. And not so suprisingly, it has some India centric applications too like Chakpak, India Dekha, Teen Patti and myHangman which is brought to you by C2W aka Contest2Win.The total list of the apps so far are as follows. (Click the links to go to the official App description on the Orkut Blog).

Music iLike
Emote!
PhotoAttack
Horoscopes
TypeRacer
Top Friends
Slide TV
myHangman
iRead
Flixster
Chakpak
Reading Social
Bible Verses
India Dekha
Teen Patti
Hangout
BuboMe
Music N Movies

However, this is not the exhaustive list. The Orkut Blog contains some more like MyMiniLife (which at the first glance looks like the SIMS meets Second Life, or is it?), Viibee- which is similar to “Are you Interested” app on Facebook, Crazy Story Game among other soon-to-arrive applications.

Though it is a good thing that Orkut is finally moving ahead with the inclusion the so far promised OpenSocial API based Apps, but it is still yet to see whether Orkut will stand and succeed in this race of the social networks. Orkut has so far always been criticised as the network with a fair amount of anonymity, and which has lead to a lot of criticism when it comes to fake profiles invading privacy of other accounts. All this came to the notice of the admins, and they finally included the privacy policy, with settings enabling users to disable non-friends of a profile to be not able to view their scrapbooks, photo albums etc. And now, with the applications being added, Orkut has to monitor it’s privacy policies and settings more closely. It is a common thing these days to see Orkut in the headlines (in India) for all the wrong reasons. All I wish it is all the luck, and may we not see Orkut again being judged.
Lastly, when it comes to uniformity and sorted out interface, Facebook knocked down MySpace. I wish the Apps inclusion in Orkut also remains clutter-free, even though it might add the provision of skins and themes very soon. And yeah, I hope to cover more of Orkut in the near future.

Update: Praxy tells me , he also can see that status update that Facebook allows, on his Orkut Profile. Now it hasn’t happened on my Profile as yet, but here’s the proof of what he says.

Hopefully, it will be rolled out for all accounts soon. And we might even see a Twitter integration for it too.

The Google Social Networking site, hugely popular in Brazil, India and Pakistan, turned 4 years old this 24th. As expected, the logo was changed, and is shown above. I joined Orkut in late 2004, back in the days when it was quite exclusive, and was invitation only. It has grown by leaps and bounds in the last 3 years with the number of members exponentially multiplying, and communities spawning like anything. Orkut has also often been a target of moral police due to its “Anonymous/Fake identity” enabled features. And this has more than often caused disturbances and uproars, especially in India.

A t Year 4, Orkut is now open to all. Does that mean, it is going to be more of fake and pseudo profiles, more spam invitations to even more spam communities, or is Orkut fighting back? Orkut has seen a lot of changes, especially in the last one year, with the addition of new features. Like the Report Spam to Scraps, and also New Privacy Options. And now, the ultimate measure in tracking down spammers. Apparently, whoever creates an Orkut ID, his/her IP address, ISP provider address and machine name will be logged in the Google server. So, no one in the Orkut network is a stranger for Google.So beware anyone who is planning to play a prank against any sensitive person/organisation. They might get in touch with Google and hunt you down.

In the coming year, I have a lot of hopes from Orkut, as it still remains my favorite social networking community. Primarily because I have all my friends here. But also because, I still see Orkut having enough room for improvement, and also we are yet to see the actual dawn of Opensocial on the Orkut platform. Let’s hope that 2008 be a fruitful year for Orkut. Cheers!