Programmers in India prefer Google's Orkut

Programmers in India prefer Google's Orkut

Google's Orkut social network isn't just big in Brazil. It's also popular in India, especially among software developers, according to a new survey.

Despite Facebook's efforts to promote that social network as the platform of choice for third-party application developers, Orkut is used by twice as many software programmers in India than either Facebook or MySpace, according to an Evans Data survey of more than 300 developers in India. Software programmers in that country are heavy users of social networks in general.

Seventy-three percent of those surveyed said they had used Orkut, compared with 35 percent for Facebook and 32 percent for MySpace.

"Capturing mindshare with developers in fast-growing emerging development markets like India and Brazil gives them (Google) a strategic advantage going forward in further cultivating this very important community," Evans Data Chief Executive John Andrews said in a statement.
Google has released new domains specific to India and Brazil as a result of the popularity in those countries.

The independent survey was conducted in late May and early June.
Originally posted at Webware

Programmers in India prefer Google''s Orkut

Posted by Elinor Mills 7 commentsGoogle''s Orkut social network isn''t just big in Brazil. It''s also popular in India, especially among software developers. Despite Facebook''s efforts to promote that social network as the platform of choice for third-party application developers, Orkut is used by twice as many software programmers in India than either Facebook or MySpace, according to an Evans Data survey of more than 300 developers in India. Software programmers in that country are heavy users of social networks in general. Seventy-three percent of those surveyed said they had used Orkut, compared with 35 percent for Facebook and 32 percent for MySpace. "Capturing mindshare with developers in fast-growing emerging development markets like India and Brazil gives them (Google) a strategic advantage going forward in further cultivating this very important community," Evans Data Chief Executive John Andrews said in a statement.

Google to Battle Child Porn on Orkut

Google to Battle Child Porn on Orkut

Internet giant Google has signed an agreement with Brazilian public prosecutors to help fight the distribution of child pornography on its Orkut social networking service. Brazilian public prosecutors had filed a suit against Google in its unwillingness to cooperate with investigations; Google maintains that it has always been willing to cooperate with Brazilian authorities, but under U.S. law could not disclose information about its users.
Brazilian authorities have claimed that as much as 90 percent of illegal online content being investigated in Brazil involves Orkut at some level. Of 624 Brazilian investigations into online human rights crimes—including crimes against children and teenagers—420 involved Orkut.
Under the new agreement, Google will employe filtering technology to block and remove illegal content on Orkut; it will also provide evidence in suspected crimes against minors when presented with a Brazilian judicial order without requiring international legal maneuvering. The company will also preserve six months of access logs of users being investigated for illegal activity on the service.
Public prosecutors had sued Google for refusing to cooperate in investigations of illegal activity on Orkut; that suit will be withdrawn as part of the agreement. Google maintains it has always been willing to cooperate with Brazilian authorities to the extend permitted under applicable laws.
Orkut was on of the earliest social networking sites to hit the Internet, and enjoyed a brief burst of popularity in the United States before losing ground to sites like MySpace and Facebook. Nonetheless, Orkut boasts some 60 million users; nearly half are Brazilian.

Orkut founder Buyukkokten

Reader Girish (right) spotted Orkut Buyukkokten, founder of Orkut.com, at Google Inc, Mountain View, California, in January 2008.

He was elated to meet Orkut and requested for a photograph along with him. The social networking guru obliged.

If you encounter/meet/see business personalities and photograph them, please scan the photographs and mail the pictures to us. We will feature the best images right here on Rediff Business.

Google, Facebook in stalemate over social data

By ANICK JESDANUN – 2 days ago
NEW YORK (AP) — Google Inc.'s online communities have little traction in the United States, but the search leader continues to seek a spot in the social-networking hierarchy. First, it must contend with Facebook, the No. 2 online hangout behind MySpace.

Days after Google unveiled Friend Connect, which lets the sites of musicians, political campaigns and others incorporate profile data from several social networks, Facebook began to block the program.

Although Google was taking advantage of the same tools that Facebook made available free to other outside developers, Facebook said Google was violating Facebook's restrictions on data sharing. The two sides remain in a stalemate.

Google, whose Orkut social network has tens of millions of users in Brazil, tried to reach further into social networking with the November unveiling of a consortium called OpenSocial, which lets developers write applications for use on multiple social networks. News Corp.'s MySpace has joined, but Facebook hasn't.

This month, Google unveiled Friend Connect, which promises to pool profile data from Facebook, Google Talk, Orkut, LinkedIn, Plaxo and hi5, though not MySpace. The profile information gets incorporated into other sites — a political campaign, for instance, can build communities of supporters by tapping existing networks — with Google serving as the intermediary.
Facebook quickly objected, citing privacy concerns. Normally dealing with other companies one on one, Facebook can block a service it feels violates its rules. With Google as the intermediary, Facebook lost that leverage, so it decided to block Friend Connect entirely.
In a blog posting, Facebook developer Charlie Cheever said Google's Friend Connect "redistributes user information from Facebook to other developers without users' knowledge, which doesn't respect the privacy standards our users have come to expect."

Google responded, acknowledging it passes along data. But it said sharing is limited to links for profile photos of users and friends who have expressly consented to sharing with that particular site. The user's name and numeric ID on Facebook are replaced with Google's own identifiers, Google said in a company blog post.
Google also said it purges Facebook data from its systems every 30 minutes, more frequently than the 24 hours required by Facebook.

Facebook has run into privacy challenges before, most recently when it unveiled a marketing tool called "Beacon" that tracked purchases Facebook members made on other Web sites and sent alerts to their Facebook friends about the transactions.

But Rachel Happe, research manager at IDC, said the dispute is ultimately about control rather than privacy. She said Google's Friend Connect "starts to eat into other people's value proposition, which is why you saw Facebook object to it." Source: http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gAOfgS-2v1Qhg7OKgdlLROleXVEAD90S061G0

Orkut

Orkut is a social networking service which is run by Google and named after its creator, an employee of Google - Orkut Büyükkökten. The service states that it was designed to help users meet new friends and maintain existing relationships. Orkut is similar to other social networking sites. Since October 2006, Orkut has permitted users to create accounts without an invitation. Orkut is the most visited website in Brazil and second most visited site in India. The initial target market for Orkut was the United States, but the majority of its users are in India and Brazil. In fact, as of May 2008, 43.9% of the traffic comes from Brazil, followed by India with 38.8%.
External links Official Site
Official Blog (in English)
Official Blog (in Portuguese)
Non-official Brazilian Magazine about Orkut (in Portuguese)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Source: wikipedia.org