speak.to

Orkut is (like Friendster, I guess) best at wasting time and impressing with its potential ...and maybe burning thru investment capital like the bubble never burst?

I’ve had some nice exchanges with some interesting people on Orkut and learned some new things. It’s about 63% Brazilian (good for learning Portuguese?) and 11% U.S. users, with lots of intelligent, liberal techie types. Oddly, Orkut’s search features suck--it cries out for Google search technology, which would be very helpful there.

well, it's almost two years since these posts, but i just got here, so y'know, time only allows me to reply now...anyway, i couldn't agree more that Orkut had great potential...yes, i'm talking about it like it's dead, though i know (hope) it's really only down for the count...what i'd like to find out is: can we revive it? how can it be revived? (snake handlers from the West Virginia hills?) and perhaps this is just *my* issue, but anybody else have any insight as to why it seems like it needs a revival/ revision? i swear it isn't just 'cause i'm american!

Wow, looking back over my experiences on Orkut since the original post here two years ago, I realize I've learned lots of incredible things, and meet so many fantastic people there. Orkut has even more potential than I realized.

It’s very popular in places like Brazil and India, and started out being popular with all sorts of cool people in the US, who then seemed to burn-out on social networking. Perhaps we can blame MySpace for assaulting everyone’s eyes and ears, and making social networking a teenage game of friend collecting and profile pimping--although it does have it's own kind of eyeball assaulting charm.

Orkut is just so very different. Teens from India that I've met on Orkut were thoughtful, surprisingly respectful, and really interesting to get to know. Orkut’s emphasis on text and groups helps to keep things interesting. I met artists, a ballerina, and all kinds of friendly people all over the world who introduced me to cool music, films, places, cultures, religions, and other things that I hardly knew existed.

Orkut could use a revival in the US. Perhaps we should tell everyone that it’s the anti-MySpace.