Is Orkut Dying?

[Kerry]

I joined Orkut about a year ago. I was never really impressed with it, but I invited all my friends & gave it a good shot for months. I even started a few communities of my own. I thought since it was "from Google" it would move forward fast & get better. Well, sadly that hasnt happened. Neither me nor my friends are visiting it much anymore.

Im just gonna rant a bit, so bare with me. It boils down to a few things, but they are big ones. The first is that the features of Orkut just plain suck & are lacking big time, especially given its affilation with Google. There is really no reason for me to keep coming back. About the only thing to do is join a community, filter through the posts that are in Portuguese & read the boring/retarded posts that usually make up the rest.

The other reason is its usually clunky & giving me the dreaded "server donut blah blah" error. And where is the intergration to other Google services? This thing should be flying by now. Whats the holdup??

So, im probably gonna lay Orkut to rest for awhile. Since I absolutly HATE myspace, I have been trying out other services. Im using tribe.net right now & its pretty good. Allot of neat features not found in any of the others. Any other suggestions?

[mondine]

Yes, your complaints are common ones, and fairly valid. Yet, in forums like these, there is still a constant flow of new people signing up.
One can only hope that further developement by Google, and the demand by new members, will eventually result in a service that is more in keeping with the expected standards of quality.
They do have a ways to go.

[Kerry]

Yeah, I mean, im really not trying to bad mouth Orkut, I had very high hopes for it. Guess its just disappointing more than anything. Im not gonna delete my account yet, so hopefully Google has some kind of game plan with Orkut. It could be very cool if they (Google) would give it some time & stop treating it like a stepchild.

[IamTheKing9]

You know, this is fairly how I think of Orkut as well. Isn't there any way to contact Google about Orkut?

[Kerry]

Originally Posted by IamTheKing9

You know, this is fairly how I think of Orkut as well. Isn't there any way to contact Google about Orkut?

http://help.orkut.com/support/bin/request.py

Dont know exactly who this goes to (Google or Orkut), but its all I found.

[geekerati]

Kerry, send me your eMail address and I'll send you a Wallop invitation.

Where you can share photos, blog, and interact with your friends.

Wallop is a research project of the Social Computing Group at Microsoft Research, exploring how people share media and build conversations in the context of social networks. We are currently conducting a small, real world trial of Wallop with small friendship groups. Therefore, membership in Wallop is limited to study participants until the trial is over. For more information about our research projects, please go to our Social Computing web site.

[kraeftig]

Is there a reason why the google plat member is recommending a Microsoft product? And is mywallop a better investment than Orkut? Interesting to see though, kinda like miracle on 34th st. macy's. _-_

-_0

[Kerry]

Originally Posted by kraeftig

Is there a reason why the google plat member is recommending a Microsoft product?

I dont know, but I dont do M$ products. I have used Macs exclusively for over 5 years now.

[happymango]

I just joined orkut today...almost feel like I missed the bandwagon. I thought it was active and running - seems like every search I do comes up with people and last notes were like in 2004. Those who have web page links - even those haven't been updated since early 2005. Oiy vey.

I have loved everything google.
*sigh*

[mondine]

Yes, the sad thing is that there are probably enough new people coming in to build some really good communities.
I think that there are just too many folks that join up, look around, and give up.

Maybe the Orkut people should do a good housecleaning of dead communities, and let give people a cleaner place to start fresh.

A little better categorization by language wouldn't hurt, either.