Every day we see more Orkut users creating their profiles on Google+ and sharing lots of interesting content there. Now we are making it easier for Orkut users who also use Google+ to share their updates with their Orkut friends  by linking their profiles.

After you link your profiles, your Orkut profile photo and name will be the same as your Google+ photo and name. In addition, you will be able to share all your public Google+ posts  with your Orkut friends. Your Google+ posts to limited audience or specific circles will remain on Google+ only and will be subject to your privacy settings. As a result, linking your profiles will also make it easier for your Orkut friends to find you on Google+.

Linking your Orkut and Google+ profiles is optional and you can decide whether you want to do it or not. In addition, even after you link them, you can decide if you want to share your public posts with your Orkut friends or not just by accessing your Orkut settings.



Share your opinions about it on the official Orkut Community.

Posted by Diego Fernandes, Google Engineer.

While thousands of users search for information on Orkut at any given moment, thousands of topics are created every minute. Wait, did I really say minute?

With this in mind, we are excited to announce that users can now search for Orkut community topics and find updated results about topics they enjoy most, in just a matter of minutes.

Happy searching!

Posted by Daniel Fireman and Ralf Wildenhues, Google Engineers

Every day, many interesting discussions arise on our Orkut communities. Whenever we want
to join them, we have to access each of our communities and search for the most recently
created topics. With so much content, sometimes an interesting topic is overlooked simply
because we forgot to check in our communities.

As of today, we will show you a list of the “hottest” topics that are trending in your

communities to guarantee you never lose another interesting discussion. These hot topics can

be found on a new tab, called explore, that we added right on your main communities page.

In addition, you can also filter your results and select to view yesterday’s or last week’s hot
topics.

This way, it will be even easier to discover the most interesting discussions trending in your
communities!

Posted by Maira Nascimento, Google Engineer

Sometimes, we are engaged in a discussion in one of our favorite communities and we want all of our friends from this community to join in. Today we’re making this super easy for you.
Whenever you create a new community topic or reply, you will have the option to send an update to all your friends who are also members of that community.



This way your friends can always keep up with what you post and maybe find some new and interesting discussions.

Posted by Marco Wisniewski, Google Engineer

We are now making it super easy to find all the great content related to your favorite topics on Orkut. In select communities, you will find a new box that shows the communities similar to the one you are currently visiting. This makes it easier to explore the enormous amount of content available on Orkut.

Similar communities are those that have a significant amount of members in common, which usually flags topics of common interest.

Try it out, we are certain that you will find new communities that you didn't even know existed!

Posted by Marco Wisniewski and Bruno Gusmão, Google Engineers

What could be better than listening to your favorite favorite music? Sharing the experience with your friends! Now you can do this directly from your Orkut page: just type in the artist or band name on the YouTube search bar while we select a playlist for you to enjoy. You can watch your favorite video clips while using Orkut, or you can minimize and leave them as background music.

In addition, the songs you listen to will be posted as an activity onto your homepage, that way your friends can also listen along.

We hope you like it!

Posted by Eduardo Ferreira, Google engineer.

Hello Orkut Users!

If you use the old version of Orkut, you've noticed that some pages look different today. Your interface may be much cleaner and simpler. You may have noticed you have more options for personalization. You also may notice that moving around your profile may be much faster. That’s because starting today and over the next few months, we will begin rolling out the new version of the platform to all Orkut users.

You’ll remember that about 3 years ago, we announced that we were testing a new version of Orkut that would be faster and easier to use. We also gave you the option of choosing whether to stay with the version of Orkut that you were familiar with, or to move on to the adventure of the latest platform. Since then, we’ve continued to experiment and update Orkut based on your feedback so that we could offer the best experience possible. And you responded. Now most of you are using the newest version of Orkut, and over the next few months everyone will be using the new platform.

We realize that for some of you, this will take getting used to. However, we want to be able to offer everyone access to some of the exciting things we’re working on and will be bringing to Orkut in the future, at the same time. We look forward to your feedback! It will help us continue to make Orkut a place where you feel comfortable sharing with your friends and experiencing the best Google has to offer. If you have any questions or comments, find us on our Official Orkut Community! We look forward to hearing from you.

Posted by Hermes de Freitas, Bárbara Veloso, and Natália Duarte, Orkut team

Novelties and good news just keep coming on Orkut. We released a new theme upon the countless requests from those who are more than familiar with Bob Marley, who enjoy reggae music, and who knows, maybe even have dreads themselves. Another novelty is a theme for the autumn season, a time when nature puts on its own spectacular show. Now it's just about experimenting and enjoying these two new themes: reggae and autumn, perhaps to the sound of Roots, Rock and Reggae.

Posted by Koji Pereira, Google designer.

With our eyes constantly on Orkut users, we've noticed that they love to customize their profiles. We are always trying to offer new and interesting themes since they are one of the most frequently requested options. We are happy to announce the introduction of theme options in communities.

If you are the owner of a community, you can now click on the "community themes" link and install a theme that best suits your community interface. Experiment with them and post your opinion on our forum!

Posted by Alberto Miranda, Google Engineer

Now you can tell your friends how you feel by using Orkut’s recently launched Vibes. We are happy to announce the return of a feature that was highly requested by long-time Orkut users. Yes, your fans are back and better than ever:

• It's easy to become somebody's fan, just go to the person’s profile and click on the star, it will change colors and you will be added to his/her fans list;
• Every time someone becomes your fan, there will be an update on Orkut where your friends can comment on and enjoy;
• Older fans will automatically appear in this updated version, in other words, your fan club can only grow!

Posted by Koji Pereira, Google Designer.