Comments on: Orkut - Google Social Networking

Orkut - Google Social Networking

Steve_at_Linnwood — Fri, 23 Jan 2004 01:01:39 -0800

Google (kinda) Offers Social Networking called Orkut
Acording to this CNET artice, Orkut is the outgrowth of a personal project by Google Engineers Orkut Buyukkokten. He created "Orkut.com in the past several months by working on it about one day a week--an amount that Google asks all of its engineers to devote to personal projects". And oh, by the way:

"Membership to orkut is by invitation only.
If you have a friend who's a member of orkut, have them invite you to join."

By: Steve_at_Linnwood

Steve_at_Linnwood — Fri, 23 Jan 2004 01:03:50 -0800

Q. How do I join orkut? A. Orkut is a trusted community. In order to join, you need to receive an invitation. Does this mean that all people who become Orkut members are just a matter of degrees away from a Google Employee?

By: The God Complex

The God Complex — Fri, 23 Jan 2004 01:14:15 -0800

What kind of lame community has closed doors and is so exclusive? What a bunch of lamers. That's lame.

By: mathowie

mathowie — Fri, 23 Jan 2004 01:17:28 -0800

It's a beta. Friendster grew the same way, everyone slightly knew Jonathon whats-his-name that started it in the bay area. I just got invited in and so far the most surprising thing is the whole thing was built in ASP. Maybe that's why it's not public yet, they haven't ported the code to a real platform yet.

By: arse_hat

arse_hat — Fri, 23 Jan 2004 01:25:10 -0800

Got an invite to this. Got an invite to Linked In recently. Friendster is banned by my spam filter so I do not know if I have been invited to join. Closed doors may be good or may be just pretentious. Time will tell.

By: The God Complex

The God Complex — Fri, 23 Jan 2004 01:44:09 -0800

I was joking since Metafilter is, at least currently, a closed-door community.

By: crankydoodle

crankydoodle — Fri, 23 Jan 2004 02:04:36 -0800

"Does this mean that all people who become Orkut members are just a matter of degrees away from a Google Employee?" I thought the exact same thing when I tried to sign up. Something I would find interesting is being able to set up satellite friend groups with specialized interests, but it would/could still be by invitation only. A person could be involved in as many different groups as they wanted to be (if/when invited); each with a different general theme and/or interest. Networking with other web developers (or multi-racial couples, or fathers, or musicians, etc.) in the Seattle-area who have all been invited by myself or other friends of mine would be something I'd be interested in. Hmm... that description smacks of Meetup.com (et. al.), but in a way I think that at the heart of it all of these "social network" services and/or sites all meet roughly that same description. PS - ASP? *yeck* At least it's not Cold Fusion! Sorry, mathowie. :) Hmm... If I help port some code to PHP can I get an invite so I can kick the orkut tires?

By: massless

massless — Fri, 23 Jan 2004 02:11:51 -0800

I think it's kinda neat (and a little unnerving) that one of my co-workers' pet projects can garner so much attention at such an early pre-anything kind of stage. When CNET called some people just looked around and said, "Orkut should get an agent. And a glamour shot." Google: A noun which, among other things, also currently means "under the microscope, emphatically." I get weird emails from reporters about projects I've only every thought about - much less actually coded. Guess we'll have to be careful what we upload to Sourceforge. S@L, crankydoodle: *laughs* I'll totally suggest some sort of programmatic way to upgrade beta testers to being actual Google employees. That's just good manners.

By: ikalliom

ikalliom — Fri, 23 Jan 2004 03:08:38 -0800

'Orkut' is Finnish for 'orgasms'. I have a feeling that us Finns will get a slightly wrong idea about the exact nature of the service.

By: i_cola

i_cola — Fri, 23 Jan 2004 04:48:35 -0800

I just got invited in... Oooo! Get Mr A-lister ;-)

By: troutfishing

troutfishing — Fri, 23 Jan 2004 05:33:18 -0800

I would not join any club that would have me as a member.

By: andrew cooke

andrew cooke — Fri, 23 Jan 2004 05:55:44 -0800

Metafilter: where membership isn't

By: cpfeifer

cpfeifer — Fri, 23 Jan 2004 05:59:35 -0800

Why even have a join link on the home page if you can't join without being invited? What's the point? Just to reinforce the exclusivity? I already know I'm not cool, you don't have to remind me.

By: dirtylittlemonkey

dirtylittlemonkey — Fri, 23 Jan 2004 06:28:05 -0800

2B1ASK1

By: christina

christina — Fri, 23 Jan 2004 07:51:19 -0800

I'd like to be invited... can it really make for better search results?

By: tranquileye

tranquileye — Fri, 23 Jan 2004 08:00:04 -0800

I think I should get invited, just so I can feel more A-list. These things are important to me!

By: xiffix

xiffix — Fri, 23 Jan 2004 09:01:55 -0800

I never mix meatspace with metaverse.

By: troutfishing

troutfishing — Fri, 23 Jan 2004 10:00:08 -0800

Gee Steve, look at all those TrackBacks. Everybody wants a piece of the action.

By: jengod

jengod — Fri, 23 Jan 2004 12:01:39 -0800

Entertainment Weekly's zeitgeist tracker, in a few weeks: OUT: Mixers 5 MINUTES AGO: Friendster IN: Orkut

By: crankydoodle

crankydoodle — Fri, 23 Jan 2004 13:21:38 -0800

"I'll totally suggest some sort of programmatic way to upgrade beta testers to being actual Google employees." LOL! I'd be happy just to get onto Orkut, but if Google needs some PHP work done just let me know. :)

By: dabitch

dabitch — Fri, 23 Jan 2004 13:26:09 -0800

couldn't Mathowie invite all of us? ;)) ikalliom - bwahahahaha. I love that. Finnish is great.

By: Steve_at_Linnwood

Steve_at_Linnwood — Fri, 23 Jan 2004 13:50:00 -0800

couldn't Mathowie invite all of us? Suddenly, Orkut membership jump 17,000 people overnight. heh

By: wendell

wendell — Fri, 23 Jan 2004 15:01:52 -0800

I'm waiting by my e-mail box feeling like Charlie Brown on Valentine's Day.

By: dejah420

dejah420 — Fri, 23 Jan 2004 18:10:59 -0800

'Orkut' is Finnish for 'orgasms'. I have a feeling that us Finns will get a slightly wrong idea about the exact nature of the service. Oh, you Finns...always with the sex, sex, sex. ;)

By: t r a c y

t r a c y — Fri, 23 Jan 2004 18:29:27 -0800

so this is for people who can't find friends in 3D...? aren't there a jazillion of these online already...? i'm confused as to why there's any buzz about it at all, at least around here, being that it appears to be such a pedestrian service. Join orkut to expand the circumference of your social circle hehe! that's hella goofy.

By: namespan

namespan — Fri, 23 Jan 2004 18:57:26 -0800

Oh, you Finns...always with the sex, sex, sex. ;) If true, their birth control technology must be light years ahead of ours.

By: christina

christina — Sat, 24 Jan 2004 08:32:09 -0800

thanks for the invite! It's really beautifully designed... do I sense Kevin Fox's touch? Good looking and easy to use. But I wonder how they'll duck the friendster/ryze issue-- linked in seems to be going strict to avoid freindspam.

By: riffola

riffola — Sun, 25 Jan 2004 07:13:41 -0800

Seems like a lot of accounts of MeFi folk have been deleted.

By: valerie

valerie — Sun, 25 Jan 2004 11:03:04 -0800

Q. How do I join orkut? A. Orkut is a trusted community. In order to join, you need to receive an invitation. Or you can always buy an invitation ;) I was invited by a friend of a Google employee, and it seems ok thus far, though not very different from the other sites like it. There are definitely some technical issues, including users being able to spam the entire membership base, and some of the functions were clearly not thought through or designed very well. Additionally, the folks running the site seem to think it's ok to delete any community posts that point out system bugs.

By: Steve_at_Linnwood

Steve_at_Linnwood — Sun, 25 Jan 2004 12:16:13 -0800

Not that anyone cares, but myself and a bunch of other people seem to have been deleted/removed at random with out notification....

By: angry modem

angry modem — Sun, 25 Jan 2004 13:24:21 -0800

I was deleted, but suspect it was because of my starting of the group 'Horsefuckers'. As well as creating the group WWWWWW(truncated)WWWW , and joining over 70 communities just because I could. I would've liked to have known exactly which reason was the one, however.

By: thatothrgirl

thatothrgirl — Sun, 25 Jan 2004 13:34:41 -0800

am, i think the goatse one prolly didn't help anything. ;) But, some of us were not members of thes groups and still got deleted. So far, only an automated response has been sent out in reply to questions about being deleted. It had an ever so helpful link to their help section - which can't be accessed since we can't log in.

By: angry modem

angry modem — Mon, 26 Jan 2004 07:33:50 -0800

I also had a tubgirl community.