Another Orkut Toolbar (For Firefox And IE)

I guess this makes three Orkut toolbars available (the previous ones mentioned here and here).

What makes this one distinct from previous versions is that it has a built in chat client inside of the toolbar (which is fun for the first five minuets--until you realize you are the only one on).



It also comes with a radio player, which may help pass the time while you are on Orkut.

You can dowload this new Orkut Toolbar over here. Firefox users may have some difficulty installing this toolbar, but you should be able to get this program up and running (simply follow the instructions on the site).

Arrested For Fake Orkut Profile?

It was not for creating the profile, but rather what was on the profile itself.

Save yourself n save others has a photo from the Mumbai Mirror, although a search on their site does not pull up the story.

However, a quick Google search was able to reveal the full story online.

(Moneycontrol India) Youth misuses classmate's profile, posts lewd scraps

He is caught following the girl's complaint

A Bachelor of Management Studies (BMS) student of Thane was arrested on Thursday for creating a classmate's profile and uploading her picture with offensive messages on an online community site without her permission.

The cyber cell of the Thane police got into the act following a complaint by a girl that someone had created her profile on Orkut.com with her picture and posted lewd messages. Within 48 hours the culprit was nabbed.

The police seemed to have a difficult time locating the culprit as the Orkut server was located in Sweden (really?) Thanks to Yahoo!, they were able to track down the culprit's yahoo address and via IP locate his exact location within India.

Moral of the story: Don't harass girls on Orkut, and don't use Yahoo! if you do (although Google may report you as well).

Update: Fixed some grammer issues.

Search Within Forum Posts (Thanks Vijay!)

Vijay has come out with a new GreaseMonkey hack enabling users to search within Orkut forums!

This searcher tries to search for a specific text in a community topic, by traversing through the various posts in the page. If the searcher finds the text in any of the posts, it highlights the text in red, wherever it occurs in the page. Else it proceeds to the next page by following the 'Next >' link. If you want to search more after the text is found, just click the 'Next >' link on the top or bottom right. The searcher will automatically start searching the remaining pages, until it find the same text again. Hope you enjoy this script!

You can download the script over here, and if you have any suggestions, problems or just want to stop by and say thanks, you can post your thought's on Matrix Chronicle (Vijay's weblog).

Related: Google Your Scrapbook (Orkut Scrapbook Searcher)

Google Opens The Gates For Orkut!

(Hat Tip: Mitanshu)

Thanks to Mitanshu for telling me about this! It appears that Orkut Invites are no longer needed in order to sign up for Orkut.

All you need now is a Google account and an honest heart (okay, so maybe the former and hopefully the latter).

Instead of hunting around for free Orkut invites, or buying one over priced on eBay, simply log on with your Google Account (or create one if you are not apart of the club).



Google will then ask you to create an Orkut account which will hook into your Google account (yes, slightly tedious, but you will be allowed to switch it to a different Google account later on if you prefer).

Although this removes Orkut as an exclusive club, this will hopefully bring in more traffic and eventually allow Orkut to compete with the king of social networks (at least in the US) MySpace (which is really ugly in my opinion).

Update: Also noticed this but forgot to mention it (although Mitanshu did on his blog). Google is now allowing Orkut users to choose who they can get friend requests from based on language.



Although a minor feature, this may cut down on the friend requests from Brazil (but then again, most Brazillians are friendly people and I don't mind translating their messages).

More Changes On Orkut...

(Hat Tip: Digital Inspiration)

After opening the gates, it seems that Orkut has created several more changes to Orkut (making it even better).

Dream Chaser has the scoop (with screen shots) on this one.

Why Is Orkut Embracing India?

Anyone who uses Orkut (at least recently) has probably noticed the colorful change on the home page.



Although the new logo reflects Google's celebration of Diwali, it probably is a hat tip regarding Orkut's explosive growth amongst India's population, which may surpass America and challenge Brazil for dominance (which has been decreasing recently).

According to Alexa (which must be taken with a grain of salt) Orkut is ranked in 11^th place worldwide.

Despite its position, Orkut is not very popular in the US. In fact it doesn't even appear on the top 100 list, as both MySpace and Facebook have left little room for any other social network (although Google's newly bought YouTube may help the search engine king in this arena).

Although failing in the US, Orkut seems to be a huge success not only in Brazil, but also in India, with Orkut.com surpassing Google India traffic wise.

This may be a good thing for Google as they are looking for qualified positions within India something they are finding to be easier said than done.

Orkut Takes On Old Blogger Feature

(Hat Tip: Binny)

I came across this over the weekend (but was too busy to post about it until now). Orkut has apparently introduced a feature that allows users to find other people with similar interests. Here is a screen shot that Binny provided me on my scrapbook.



Although this may be new to many users, this is an old feature from the old Blogger (as it is not in the new beta yet) as one can see here.

It seems as if Google is introducing several "networking features" inside Orkut which may be a result of Google's features, not products meeting led by co-founder Sergey Brin.

I wonder if the Orkut engineers would consider adding Gtalk to not only Orkut, but also installing it on the Orkut Friend Map as it would enable users to not only see who is online, but chat with them as well (hint, hint).