Where can you find your old lost schoolmates? Where can you find like minded football fanatics and plan an outing together at a restaurant? Where can you discuss strategies about everything under the sun (games, lifestyle, products, sensitive issues)??Lately it seems that everyone who has soft skills is on orkut!!The title is only meant to capture your attention and not meant to offend those who have stayed away from orkut till now :)I started very late, only in late 2005, and within 3 months I found the photos and contacts of everyone I could imagine, from my school, college, work, and even some odd trip that I took sometime. And the best part is, more than half of the people in my friend list are the ones who have added me (I didn’t even have to search for them)!!
That’s the beauty of it. One can search for friends directly, or search through friends of friends. One can even see the members of a community (like high school) and find their friends there.But that’s not what orkut is all about. It just starts here. From using "scraps" to communicate with your friends and telling the whole world about yourself, to being an active part of a community with a cause. Orkut has a whole host of featuresOne feature lets you add someone in your crush list (and if the person adds you too, you have an online matchmaker at work, coz it will tell both of you about your crushes!!)While the other feature lets you rate your friends. You can decide how "cool", "sexy", or "trusty" a person is.
You can also organise your friends in groups. This way, you can send a common message meant for that particular domain only.I have seen it grow so fast not only in terms of its users, but also its features.Birthday reminders: Birthdays of people on your friend list right on your home page, with a link to their profile so u can wish them right awayReply to a person’s scrap without having to visit that person’s scrapbookSearch for a person in your friend’s friend list without having to go through all the namesKnow about the online status of a person (Gtalk, Gmail etc) directly just bybeing on orkutIt is the complete mix and match of tools required to socialize online.
Although there are unscroupulous elements here too (like everywhere)There was this virus that spread last year. There was a link to some exe, and if one clicked that link, all his/her friends will get the same scrap too (spam). Orkut curbed it by introducing the image verification used by many email sites. To post a link or a URL, you need to verify that u r indeed well intentioned by typing the characters that you see in an image next to the "submit" button.There are no restrictions on communities, so you will find "hate" communities and porn communities as well.
Although there is a "report as bogus" link on every community/user profile, they hardly seem to take any action against anyone. (It’s impossible to keep tab on millions of communities and users for anyone)I have seen people leave it just because they found it too addictive or they didn’t find the time to regularly check it.Tips for using orkut:>Make your profile easy to read and direct and true.>Use keys while editing your profile. E.g. Don’t make ur email or mobile no visible to public. Select the key "friends" for things you only want your friends to know, e.g. ur birthday>Use your own photo.
No one can steal it and use it to cause u harm. Frankly, they’d rather substitute the face of a porn star with a well known actor/actress>Don’t spread messages (through scrapbooks or messages) that ask you to forward it or else you will get bad luck or orkut will block your account or other such nonsense>Remember the communities you join make an impression of your interests to your friends and others, so choose them wisely.So that’s it, what are you waiting for? Ask that friend of yours who has access to orkut to send you an invitation