Some time ago we announced a new, faster and more fun photo experience on orkut. After that, we showed you how to share photos directly from Picasa, and how to import your photos from Picasa Web Albums. More recently, we announced that now you can also add images to your scraps.

After some many updates to orkut photo sharing, we decided to make a video to show them off in a cooler way. Check it out!





Inspired to share your photos on orkut? To get started, just go to your orkut albums page. And if you'd like to share a comment, visit our help forum or official community on orkut.

Posted by Ariel, orkut operations team

What’s large, covered in water, and constantly spinning? Hint: it’s not a washing machine or synchronized swimmers (but we applaud your imagination!). It’s Planet Earth, a space we all share no matter how old we are, or where we’re from.

Today is Earth Day, a global event dedicated to celebrating our planet and pointing out things that each of us can do to help make our planet a better place. Whether picking up trash or planting and saving trees, people everywhere are working on projects to improve the world we live in.

If you’d like to do your part, try searching for activities going on in your town or city. If you can’t find anything, or have your own ideas about ways in which to contribute, why not start your own project? You can use an orkut community as your home base and orkut promote to help spread the word.

You can also check out other free Google products that can help you easily organize a social club. You might be surprised by how many people want to get involved!

Posted by Ariel, orkut operations team

So, you've got a hot date, and want the perfect place for that special dinner? Online review sites may be helpful, but they don't know your likes and dislikes very well. Wouldn't it be great if you could get tips from those who know you best -- your friends?

With Ask Friends, a great and simple orkut app, you can ask your pals for their opinions and recommendations. Now, you can ask those you trust most to give you their thoughts on just about anything, from how to pick a wine to where to shop for camping gear.

This is how Ask Friends works: Just ask a question, and it will be sent to your orkut friends (you can even choose to send the question to only certain friends on your list). You can make the question publicly available so that others can provide their input as well, and categorize your questions by topic.

When someone contributes an answer, you'll receive a notification. If you're not satisfied with the answers you get, you can reply to the thread and ask for more details.

Ask Friends also monitors your own performance when answering other people's questions -- it gives you a rating, and as you provide great information to others, you'll earn points toward achieving a higher-level rating as a trusted source.

Many of you already know and love this application. We think our existing users will enjoy some of the latest updates as well -- a new look, an easier navigation, updated notifications and invitations to friends.

So go ahead, be curious and ask away!

Posted by Huanjun Bao, software engineer