To honor the thousands of mothers and mothers-to-be that we have on orkut, we've put this special doodle on the login page today. We expect that you've already called home, seen your mom, or at least sent her a scrap, and if you haven't already, get to it! We know you care, because our largest community on orkut is for mom lovers!
Happy Mother's Day!
Sunday, May 11, 2008 7:40 AM
What's new with you?
Thursday, May 08, 2008 6:21 AM
It is simple, quick and easy: go to your profile, type whatever you want to appear as your status in the box right below your name, and it is done! Now whoever views your profile can view your latest news. Permalink | Links to this post |
What do think of my photo? Make a comment!
Tuesday, May 06, 2008 12:07 PM
Since photo sharing is one of the most popular ways to use orkut, we are constantly working to add more functionality to our photo albums. Last week we launched a feature that lets you rearrange your photos within an album, and we announced that you can upload up to 10,000 pictures to orkut (have you taken full advantage yet?). Today, we're happy to share that you can now comment on your friends' photos. Captions have always been a fun way to tell your friends what's going on in your pictures, but sometimes when you're looking at others' photos, you want to respond to the captions right there rather than sending a scrap or message. To post a comment, simply type your response in the comments section below the photo and hit "post comment." Your comment will show up below your friend's photo. If you decide afterwards that you'd like to take down your comment, you (or the photo owner) can always remove it.
App Highlight: iLike
Monday, May 05, 2008 10:42 AM
iLike is an app that lets you share lists of your favorite videos, artists and music with your friends. One of iLike's unique features is that it lets you add songs and scraps. To add song snippets as scraps, you'll first need to search the iLike library to find a favorite song.
[Since apps recently went live on orkut, we're excited to invite orkut developers to guest blog and tell us about their apps here.]
To add song snippets as scraps, you'll first need to search the iLike library to find a favorite song. If you click "Send as a scrap," you will receive a simple line of code that you can copy and paste into any friend's scrapbook:
The iLike Challenge- how well do you know your music?
With the music challenge, you can test your musical knowledge and compare your score to your friends' scores. The app will play a short snippet of a song and prompt you to identify the artist. Challenge your friends and show your score on your profile.
orkut Super Users visit Google Office
Friday, May 02, 2008 10:19 AM
Posted by the orkut team
On Apr 18, the Google office in Belo Horizonte hosted a special event for some VIP guests: the orkut super users from the Portuguese Help Group. By bringing together these orkut experts and enthusiasts, we got some critical feedback about orkut and learned more about how they sustain our help community. Here's what they thought about it:
"The invite was a surprise, a dream come true, which just shows how Google cares for its users and how it's always exceeding our expectations. The atmosphere in the office is so exciting that you don't want to find your way out. As if we were orkut ambassadors, we felt our voice was heard when brainstorming about suggestions and usability issues. We hope we have done a good job at representing millions of users who have orkut as their favorite website." Alexandre Luis Vignado
"This day became a historical landmark for me. I enjoyed every single moment, from printing my badge at the front desk to toasting with Googlers during TGIF. I had to pinch myself to believe that I was visiting the company responsible for the most successful social networking website in Brazil: orkut! The environment is so relaxing that you can easily forget there's hard work being done in each of those cubes. But Google doesn't forget it and does the best to reward its employees with massage, hammocks, and game rooms. And the treats in the micro kitchen, of course! Visiting a Google office is like visiting a Google product: fun and quality everywhere! As you can see from my impressions, I don't feel I myself worked hard on that day, event though I participated in brainstorming sessions for 7 hours. Those were magic hours when we felt part of the orkut team and did our best to speak for all those users we interact with in the Help Group. orkut just became more admirable and promising for me." Cesar JB
"The invite was a surprise that only the visit itself could beat. While taking a tour at the office, we met some engineers who were having a meeting around a team member's birthday cake, which they kindly shared cake with us. Nice start... Even after working hard at focus sessions for hours, we didn't want to leave, which was perfectly fine for those Googlers who stayed with us celebrating TGIF and playing foosball. Cool, sociable, and smart people work there – and we attest, they're NORMAL people. :-) It was also great to meet in person my partners in the Help Group, Cesar and Alexandre. This bonding time will just improve our teamwork spirit." Luiz Fernando
Permalink | Links to this post |
App highlights: iPoke and Teen Patti
Thursday, May 01, 2008 10:41 AM
Author: Sanjay Aggarwal
Company: Minglebox
[Since apps recently went live on orkut, we're excited to invite orkut developers to guest blog and tell us about their apps here.]
The Minglebox team is excited to develop applications that are tailored for the Indian audience -- iPoke and Teen Patti are two apps we've made available on orkut.
With iPoke, you can interact with friends using Indian lingo. Get caught in cricket with college buddies. Bowl a maiden over, fox a friend with a googly, or get hit wicket. Resume the chalk-piece war from your old school days. Missed your friend on his birthday? Smash a birthday cake on his face!
Reorder and organize your pictures in orkut albums
Wednesday, April 30, 2008 7:23 AM
Posted by Abhishek Surana, Software Engineer
Now that we have more capacity for you to upload your photos (if you haven't tested the limit lately, you can now upload up to 10,000 pictures), we've also upgraded our photo album features. For example, until now, you had to delete and re-upload photos to change the order of photos in your albums. To make this easier, we launched a 'reorder photos' functionality which lets you organize your pictures directly in orkut. If you want to mix things up in your albums, select the album you'd like to modify, click on "reorder photos," then simply drag and drop your photos until you have it just right.
Privacy Feature Update
Monday, April 28, 2008 11:19 AM
Vlad Patryshev, Software Engineer
Thanks for all the great feedback on privacy, and we're glad to hear that so many of you appreciate our continued work to make orkut a place that allows you to be as public or private with your information as you wish. This week we are adding additional flexibility for you to manage the privacy of your testimonials, videos, scrapbook and feeds. In addition to having your privacy settings to be just "friends" or "everyone," you can now select also "friend of friends." We feel that this is a good choice for those of you who may wish to share your information with an extended group of friends without making it public to everyone. We hope this additional flexibility helps you manage your experience on orkut better.
App highlight: myHangman
Friday, April 18, 2008 6:02 AM
Posted by Ekalavya Bhattacharya, Contests2win.com How to do I play?
[Since apps recently went live on orkut, we're excited to invite orkut developers to guest blog and tell us about their apps here.]
myHangman lets you play the classic game of Hangman. You can choose a topic from the existing list or create your own based on your favorite movies, music, TV Shows, celebrities, or anything else that fascinates you.
Save your man from hanging by guessing the missing letters and filling in the blanks to determine the right answer. Don't worry, even if you lose one round, you can try to rescue your man again in the next game.
What else can I do on this application?
You can also create your own game and challenge your friends to play against you. C2W, the company that developed the myHangman app, even has plans to add prizes - another reason to try out myHangman!
Now available: orkut on your mobile phone, on the go
Thursday, April 17, 2008 11:02 AM
Posted by Hazel Mary, Software Engineer
Have you ever wanted to check if your buddy responded to your scrap about this evening's plans, but not been close to a computer? Do you wish you could pass the time on your long commute home by browsing through your friends' profiles?
Fret no more - if you have a web-enabled phone and a data plan, just point your mobile web browser to http://m.orkut.com, and stay connected to your friends anytime, anywhere.
We understand that oftentimes your phone's data network isn't as fast (or as cheap) as your computer's, so in designing orkut for mobile, we focused on offering the features that are most useful when you're on the move, instead of replicating all the desktop features. For example, we've made it easy to send, receive, and respond to scraps on our mobile interface so that you can step away from your computer and have conversations on the go. From your phone, simply click the new "Reply" link to respond directly to a scrap from your friend. You can also read recent updates from your friends, view upcoming birthdays, look up and add friends, and accept friend requests.
After you try out orkut for mobile, we'd love to hear what you think. From the http://m.orkut.com homepage, click on the "help" link at the bottom of the screen to send us your feedback.
Happy mobile orkuting!
