What is Orkut?
Orkut is an Internet social network service run by Google and named after its creator, Google employee Orkut Büyükkökten. It claims to be designed to help users meet new friends and maintain existing relationships.
History
Orkut was launched on January 22, 2004 by the search company Google, the brainchild of Orkut Büyükkökten, a Turkish software engineer, who developed it as an independent project while working at Google. Some discomfort with this exists among users and potential users of Orkut, especially since Google's other noteworthy product of 2004, the Web-based email client Gmail, had servers scan emails for keywords in order to deliver advertisements targeted at them, which meant to some that Google was "reading your e-mail".
Originally, the Orkut community was felt to be elite, because its membership was by invitation only. At the end of July 2004 Orkut surpassed the 1,000,000 member mark, and at the end of September it surpassed the 2,000,000 mark. As of 9th April, 2007, the number of members was over 49 million
Orkut's use as a social tool is complex, because various people frequently try to add strangers to their own pool of friends, often just to increase the number indicating their number of friends next to their name in their profile.
Orkut was launched on January 22, 2004 by the search company Google, the brainchild of Orkut Büyükkökten, a Turkish software engineer, who developed it as an independent project while working at Google. Some discomfort with this exists among users and potential users of Orkut, especially since Google's other noteworthy product of 2004, the Web-based email client Gmail, had servers scan emails for keywords in order to deliver advertisements targeted at them, which meant to some that Google was "reading your e-mail".
Originally, the Orkut community was felt to be elite, because its membership was by invitation only. At the end of July 2004 Orkut surpassed the 1,000,000 member mark, and at the end of September it surpassed the 2,000,000 mark. As of 9th April, 2007, the number of members was over 49 million
Orkut's use as a social tool is complex, because various people frequently try to add strangers to their own pool of friends, often just to increase the number indicating their number of friends next to their name in their profile.
List of Features
Orkut has a list of features unique to itself like "Scrapbook","Communities" etc., apart from the normal features like messaging and photo album.
Scrapping, though the word in not accepted officially in English, is popular among the Orkut community as a kind of offline chatting. You can scrap a person even if he is offline. The person to whom the scrap is sent will be able to see it when he visits his scrapbook. Contrary to personal messaging or email, scrap book entries are public, meaning that any one with an orkut account can read others scraps. Earlier if a person had to reply to the scrap he had to visit the person's profile then go to his scrapbook then scrap him. But in late 2006 Orkut changed it by adding a feature by which one can reply to a scrap from their scrapbook itself.
Another unique feature of orkut is "Communities". Anyone with an orkut account can create a community on anything. One can post topics, inform users about an event, ask them questions or just play games. There are more than a million communities on orkut on absolutely everything from pizza to pasta from Film star to superstar, from your pet to your teacher. The 1st 5 communities on orkut were started with in 24 hrs of launch of orkut. In April 2007, orkut added a feature called "Polls" where in community users can be polled. Participation can be open for all or can be restricted to only the members of community.
In addition to this there is a personal messaging feature. Users rarely use this feature. It is mainly used by community owners to ask others to join their community. Though the messages are meant to be personal they aren't. If you know the exact link of the message then you can visit read their messages.
There is also a feature to upload photos and videos into your orkut profile. One can have up to 12 photos on his album. Each photo can also be tagged with a citation. The video upload feature was added in early 2007, probably after Google's acquisition of YouTube. Users can even link their videos from Youtube or google video and make it play as an inline video within orkut.
Users have options to rate their friends in the order of "Best Friends", "Good Friends", "Friends", "Acquaintances" and "Haven't met". Further, each member can become fans of any of the friends in their list and can also evaluate whether their friend is "Trustworthy", "Cool", "Sexy" on a scale of 1 to 3 (marked by icons) and is aggregated in terms of a percentage. Unlike Facebook where a member can view profile details of people only on their network, Orkut allows anyone to visit anyone's profile, unless a potential visitor is on your "Ignore List". Importantly, each member can also customize their profile preferences and can restrict information that appear on their profile from their friends and/or others (not on the friends list). The highlight feature is where any member can add any other member on Orkut to his/her "Crush List" and both of them will be informed only when both parties have added each other to their "Crush List". If person A deletes person B from his friends' list, person A will be deleted from person B's friends' list also.
Scrapping, though the word in not accepted officially in English, is popular among the Orkut community as a kind of offline chatting. You can scrap a person even if he is offline. The person to whom the scrap is sent will be able to see it when he visits his scrapbook. Contrary to personal messaging or email, scrap book entries are public, meaning that any one with an orkut account can read others scraps. Earlier if a person had to reply to the scrap he had to visit the person's profile then go to his scrapbook then scrap him. But in late 2006 Orkut changed it by adding a feature by which one can reply to a scrap from their scrapbook itself.
Another unique feature of orkut is "Communities". Anyone with an orkut account can create a community on anything. One can post topics, inform users about an event, ask them questions or just play games. There are more than a million communities on orkut on absolutely everything from pizza to pasta from Film star to superstar, from your pet to your teacher. The 1st 5 communities on orkut were started with in 24 hrs of launch of orkut. In April 2007, orkut added a feature called "Polls" where in community users can be polled. Participation can be open for all or can be restricted to only the members of community.
In addition to this there is a personal messaging feature. Users rarely use this feature. It is mainly used by community owners to ask others to join their community. Though the messages are meant to be personal they aren't. If you know the exact link of the message then you can visit read their messages.
There is also a feature to upload photos and videos into your orkut profile. One can have up to 12 photos on his album. Each photo can also be tagged with a citation. The video upload feature was added in early 2007, probably after Google's acquisition of YouTube. Users can even link their videos from Youtube or google video and make it play as an inline video within orkut.
Users have options to rate their friends in the order of "Best Friends", "Good Friends", "Friends", "Acquaintances" and "Haven't met". Further, each member can become fans of any of the friends in their list and can also evaluate whether their friend is "Trustworthy", "Cool", "Sexy" on a scale of 1 to 3 (marked by icons) and is aggregated in terms of a percentage. Unlike Facebook where a member can view profile details of people only on their network, Orkut allows anyone to visit anyone's profile, unless a potential visitor is on your "Ignore List". Importantly, each member can also customize their profile preferences and can restrict information that appear on their profile from their friends and/or others (not on the friends list). The highlight feature is where any member can add any other member on Orkut to his/her "Crush List" and both of them will be informed only when both parties have added each other to their "Crush List". If person A deletes person B from his friends' list, person A will be deleted from person B's friends' list also.
Orkut in India
Of late, the number of Indians on Orkut has been increasing rapidly. On October 10, 2006, the Bombay High Court's Aurangabad bench served a notice on Google for allowing a hate campaign against India. This referred to a community on Orkut called 'We Hate India', which initially carried a picture of an Indian flag being burned and some anti-India content. Often the creator of such groups give false information about their location to instigate further hatred.
Of late, the number of Indians on Orkut has been increasing rapidly. On October 10, 2006, the Bombay High Court's Aurangabad bench served a notice on Google for allowing a hate campaign against India. This referred to a community on Orkut called 'We Hate India', which initially carried a picture of an Indian flag being burned and some anti-India content. Often the creator of such groups give false information about their location to instigate further hatred.
The High Court order was issued in response to a public-interest petition filed by an Aurangabad advocate. Google had six weeks to respond. Even before the petition was filed, many Orkut users had noticed this community and were mailing or otherwise messaging their contacts on Orkut to report the community as bogus to Google, which could result in its removal. The community continues to exist and had spawned several 'We hate those who hate India' communities.
On November 23, Bombay High Court asked the state government to file its reply in connection with a petition demanding a ban on social networking site, Orkut, for hosting an anti-Shivaji Web community.
Recently, the Pune rural police cracked a rave party which is illegal in India. The accused have been charged under anti-narcotic laws, the (Indian) Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropics Substances Act, 1985 (NDPS). Besides the NDPS, according to some media reports, the police were deliberating on the issue of charging the accused under the (Indian) Information Technology Act, 2000 perhaps because Orkut was believed to be one of the mode of communication for these kind of drug abuses. Some Indians believe that Orkut digital social network should be moderated heavily in a place where people lack the maturity and misuse its facilities.
On November 23, Bombay High Court asked the state government to file its reply in connection with a petition demanding a ban on social networking site, Orkut, for hosting an anti-Shivaji Web community.
Recently, the Pune rural police cracked a rave party which is illegal in India. The accused have been charged under anti-narcotic laws, the (Indian) Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropics Substances Act, 1985 (NDPS). Besides the NDPS, according to some media reports, the police were deliberating on the issue of charging the accused under the (Indian) Information Technology Act, 2000 perhaps because Orkut was believed to be one of the mode of communication for these kind of drug abuses. Some Indians believe that Orkut digital social network should be moderated heavily in a place where people lack the maturity and misuse its facilities.
