October 13, 2009

orkut's New Conversational Interface

Google Chrome's homepage for Brazil has a screenshot that shows a new orkut interface. Google decided to use some ideas from services like Twitter, FriendFeed, Facebook and make it easy to post messages and to see the messages posted by your friends.


Google's social network is popular in Brazil and India, but other social networks are trying to steal the crown. A ComScore report shows that "in August, Orkut's unique visitors in India dipped by 800,000 within a month, from 16 million visitors in July to 15.2 million visitors in August. On the other hand, Facebook grew its unique visitors in India by 700,000, from 7.5 million visitors in July to 8.2 million visitors in August."

orkut has never been an innovative service: many of its features were copied from other social networks. orkut's popularity in Brazil and India is probably the only reason why Google didn't discontinue the service.

Update (October 29): The new version of orkut, built using Google Web Toolkit, is now available via invitation. "We've concentrated orkut's principal actions onto your homepage, making it a one-stop-shop for nearly everything that you'd like to do. Now you can chat, watch videos, and browse and search within your full friends and communities lists without ever having to open a new page." Check orkut's blog for more information.

{ Thanks, Carlos. }

22 comments:

  1. Cool... I'm going to check it out.
    Orkut's users maybe stop exporting their accounts to Facebook... :)

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  2. I love orkut.. I guess it spoiled me :)

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  3. It's really funny when u ask someone from outside brazil if they have orkut... they look and say "what a f%#$"??? hua hua hua....

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  4. I am going to check this is my Orkut account but i never see this type of interface in orkut let us see what happens.

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  5. I noticed that Google removed Orkut from the 'more options' this month, is this an admission that they have lost the UK social race? It seems weird as so many UK Asian people I know use Orkut.

    http://www.google.co.uk/intl/en/options/

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  6. This seems to be just a mockup.
    Look the search input, and "Início" (start/home) and "Perfil" (profile) links..
    Buty if true, it looks great.

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  7. É possível notar, também, a adição da barra superior com outros serviços do Google. Ccoisa que, até o momento, só o Orkut não tem.

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  8. Parando com o captcha e a pasta de SPAM entre amigos tá ótimo! Porque com isso o orkut tá um LIXO.

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  9. Nice update. Wish would release till end of this month :-P

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  10. When this update came in india

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  11. I have never seen a company try so hard to ignore a product without actually killing it.

    Clearly Google thinks it can counter Facebook with the ever growing interconnectedness of Google's other products (which is a good thing). But letting Orkut just rot in the man time makes no sense.

    I actually prefer the much simpler Orkut interface to the much more complex (and slow) alternatives. But a good interface does no good if you don't have a critical mass of users.

    Nobody I know uses Orkut, which makes it pretty much useless no matter how much faster or cleaner the interface is.

    I doubt these recent changes will make any difference (and chance are they are only available in certain regions).

    But there is always hope.

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  12. bem observado Ricardo... relamnete ela " faz falta" ... Como tobo brasileiro utilizo orkut, não gostei do facebook entre outros.. uma rede social que esta crescendo na america latina é o badoo.com. acredito que ainda surgira uma nova rede social que ira dominar ... Viva O Brazil......
    ***** Champion
    São Paulo FC *** World Champion and ****** National

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  13. Eu não quero novo visual, porque mesmo velho, aquele azul do Orkut ainda quebra um galhão, quero mesmo é novos recursos para deixar as comunidades com cara de fórum!

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  14. Those who have migrated to facebook from orkut will not come back so easily becaused its not the migrations of just one person but infact the migration of entire group and convincing a group is not easy and I know that very well. I switched from orkut to facebook around 1 year back and made around 150 of my friends directly or indirectly to switch to facebook. Now I have 3 to 4 times number of friends on facebook than I had on orkut for the simple reason that their friend suggestion feature, their update feature and comments things are more powerful then orkut. Even if orkut gets the same feature migration back and forth on social network is difficult. Though I miss orkut and its simple and easy to use interface.

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  15. facebook just sucks... have you ever looked into your homepage.. it's only filled with updates from games and other apps and looks like garbage.. there is very little space to clearly figure out real stuff i.e. updates from friends.. and also there are not any communities in facebook.. orkut rox because it has so many communities and their interface is cool. Orkut is also great to modify your profile in any way.. use stylish fonts and texts which are just not possible in facebook or any other social networking site.

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  16. It is looking nice...But i visited many of profiles. But i didn't catch this kinda of interface. Anyways i will check it and get it soon. Thanks for sharing this information with us.

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  17. looks great i am going to check it out...

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  18. You were right !

    Here it is the new Orkut Interface in action !
    : http://3.ly/Orkut

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  19. Can somebody please invite me for the new orkut?
    I don't understand whyy you guys dont put upanything for people who are living in canada.
    I have never seen themes or anything like that. Now im really desperatet to see the new orkut
    sanjana.xoxo@hotmail.com

    Thanks :)

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  20. Someone please invite me for the new orkut?
    My mail ID is
    Rajneeshgadge17@gmail.com

    Thnaks.

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