"Orkut" - - I was like what is this, when I heard it in office, I could then see, lot of people were busy with Orkut, be it manager or an engineer, every one was orkutting, and I was new to this.
Then came my good friend he told me this web site, and said if you have a gmail id, then he would send me an invitation on this, I agreed as nothing much I had to do, and here it goes, my profile was created and was left with one friend.
Slowly and steadily people started discovering me and me started looking for old friends and within a period of two months I was with 110 friends, few from this organization, few from last, few college mates and few school friends and it keeps rolling
IS ORKUT AN ADDICTION? :- yes would be the answer for this, if you are an outgoing, extrovert, fun loving, looking for friends, then, yes Orkut is an addiction, although none of my 110 friends would come to rescue me if I need money :).
WHAT IS ORKUT AND WHATS THE IDEA BEHIND?:- Orkut.com is community, friendship based site, where people create their profile, few would be genuine and rest all would be fake, and upload their picks to share with those friends who are far, and cannot be contacted, or if contacted would like to be avoided or as said to understand the popularity among the circle, be it office or college (although this site is now blocked in our office due to wastage of man power)
Orkut has a very simple idea, steps are:-
Joinee should have a active Gmail id.
a known friend, who’s profile is active in Orkut, would send you the request.
you acknowledge the request, and fill in those stupid question and upload your pic, or could replace it with Sharukh or Jolie’s pic.
Then start searching friends from that one friend, peep in their profile, search for community that interest you, as in Orkut their are community from cars to condoms and then you become active, people will scrap something like comment in mouthshut and then it goes on and goes on, and hence the first thing that you would do is to login to Orkut check new guy / gal or weather your scrapped or not.
however the best part is the album, where an active member can post the pics, and whole world can see it ------- "Neighbour’s envy owners pride" is the formula behind
Orkut to some extent is very good but then as an human being we have a tendency to look for the flip side of it and yes Orkut has not few but many, hence I cut short the story of mine and get down to Pros and cons
SO here we go with Pros first:-
- Simple and yet addictive looks:- I believe most of you, who are active on Orkut would agree to this. This website is so addictive that trust me you would love to sit on it for hours together, reason being, looking for friends, reading testimonials and scraps for other friends, searching for communities that might be of an interest to you and its whole bunch of world packed from New Delhi to New York.
2. Integrated gmail account: Since Orkut was sold to google, the best thing, I could think is ..... no not again, new id, new password, its the same id and password which works so its easy to remember and now Google has integrated google talk on this hence, any friend who is online you could see them in the friend list and ping them
3. Photo Album:- 9 pics could b uploaded in the profile, hence I believe its good enough to share family and friends online.
4. Community:- as said before Orkut has communities from Cars to Condoms, hence its easy to find anything as a community or could create a community of your choice and invite people to join it or they would search it and join them.
5. Scraps:- one best thing in Orkut which I like is this!!! why because world will read it and stories can be written here.
6. Testimonials:- One thing that admires you a lot about your friend could be written, and your friend would approve it if he likes and then that testimonial would be added to his homepage.... a good way of telling the boss how much you love although during appraisal you curse him
7. Upcoming Birthday:- I could only remember three dates, i.e. my marriage anniversary, my wife’s birthday and new year, for rest, I care but if some one reminds I remember, with Orkut, upcoming birthdays come up on our home page and hence without fail we could wish them, either in advance or on time, as Orkut gives a window of 2 weeks
8. Fan list:- how much you love your friend could be rated here
9. Messages- a concept similar to email, with the exception that either it would be sent to one friend or to all, i.e. the list of friends added in your profile, hence its a limited email access.
10. Best of best:- No advertisement and its free.....
lets now get down to few flip side of this website:-
1. Photo Album:- I actually love this feature, but its not protected, I mean, all you could do is right click on any pic from any friend’s album and save it.... :( and could easily misuse it.... (: , I have seen people avoiding or quitting from this site just because of this
2. Profile duplicity:- its unknown to many people, few buggurs what they do is create a similar profile as to yours or close to your name with all shitty pics and later move your friends from your profile to that, its common for female profiles
3. Block options:- they exist, but is like virginity.
4. Adult profiles :- A simple looking profile could be adult inside, hence there is no option which pops up before hand like it happens in yahoo profile.
5. Communities:- There are some communities that may hurt in terms of religion, caste, sex, nation, but all you could do is "report it as bogus" that’s it.., until more people report the same.
hmmm I could have written more but then I am not doing doctorate on this site, my suggestion to people who would like to join Orkut is:-
Go ahead, there is nothing wrong going online but then do not be toooo honest, close friends of yours know how much honest you are, and remember, that world is watching you
Upload Pictures but not singles (specially female’s) all in pairs and should be in a habit of changing it.
be careful with scraps, and read them, anything insulting escalate it
if cannot keep it up delete the profile, but do not be active there.
rest fun is must and it should be alive....
wish you guys best - keep orkutting
chill
Zeeshan