Gawker: valleywag, orkut

How Google killed Blogger's social network

Owen Thomas — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 12:40:00 EDT

The new "followers" feature on Google's Blogger, which turns the blogging service into a quasi-social network, may strike some as too little, too late — a me-too move following WordPress and Movable Type's adddition of social elements. But it didn't have to happen. Blogger had a full-fledged social network in the works years ago, called Profiles — and it was quashed by Marissa Mayer in favor of Orkut. Why? Mayer's own social network.

Mayer let development of Blogger Profiles proceed in parallel with Orkut, the self-named network created by Google engineer Orkut Buyukkokten — but deprived Blogger's team of the necessary resources to turn the site into a full-fledged social network, a former Google executive told me. Mayer decided to give Orkut the green light instead. Why? One can speculate on the reasons, but it's striking Damion Matthews)

Worldwide visitors to Facebook up 153 percent in a year

Nicholas Carlson — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 13:20:00 EDT

Metrics firm ComScore reports that 132 million unique visitors logged onto Facebook in June 2008, up from just 52 million in June 2007. 117 million worldwide users visited MySpace during June 2008. Its Facebook's first definitive traffic victory, from a source advertisers actually pay attention to, over MySpace. Way down on the list at No. 6 — past the fast-growing Hi5, past still-kicking Friendster — there's AOL CEO Randy Falco's $850 million social network, Bebo, which saw 24 million visitors in June.

Orkut inventor may be best argument against H-1B visas yet

Owen Thomas — Thu, 15 May 2008 20:00:00 EDT

Give us more H-1B visas and we'll give you innovative products. That's the pitch Google exec Laszlo Bock made to Congress as he decried the H-1B visa cap. Projects like also-ran social network Orkut, which was created (or stolen, depending on who you ask) by H-1B hire Orkut Buyukkokten (pictured, right) represent a boon to the U.S. economy, added Google lobbyist Pablo Chavez as he echoed Block's plea for more visas.

But this week's SEC filing painted a different picture of orkut, as Google warned investors that its "ability to generate revenue from services in which we have invested considerable time and resources, such as YouTube, Gmail, Orkut and Google Checkout" poses a risk to the company. Buyukkokten, meanwhile, has made enough off Google to buy a three-story apartment in San Francisco and hire male strippers for a birthday party.

MySpace's technical triumph

Owen Thomas — Tue, 06 May 2008 16:00:00 EDT

The conventional wisdom in Silicon Valley is that MySpace, based in Los Angeles, is a tech nightmare, blaring songs through a user's speakers while crashing all the time. Skilled engineers are in short supply down south, so the website must be falling over all the time, right? Not so. Pingdom, a website-monitoring service, has tracked how often some of the top social networks have gone offline. Twitter, based in Web-savvy San Francisco, has been down for 37 hours from January through April. MySpace has been up 99.96 percent of the time. That's 33 percent less downtime than Yahoo 360, and 60 percent less than Google's Orkut. Score one for the LA crowd. The chart:

Google ceases to protect its Brazilian users' right to child porn

Nicholas Carlson — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 13:00:00 EDT

Felix Ximenes, Google's chief flack in brazil, yesterday gave the Brazilian government DVDs containing information on 3,261 allegedly child-lusting users of its social network Orkut. "With the information we have received, we will be able to strike a major blow against the pedophile network acting in the country," Brazilian Senator Demostenes Torres told the Wall Street Journal. Last August, the Brazilian government said Google refused to turn over information about users accused of hate speech and pedophilia. What's Google's excuse for taking eight months — they couldn't find the data?

Bebo needs cash to keep its servers running

Nicholas Carlson — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 12:09:00 EST

Now we know why Bebo's so eager for more cash. It needs more servers. According to Pingdom, Bebo has already been down for 12 hours and 28 minutes so far this year. Check out the full chart to see how 13 other social networks have fared so far.

Trojan targets Google's AdSense revenue

Tim Faulkner — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 17:40:47 EST

Google is the target of a trojan that could be more damaging than the worm that has affected literally dozens of Orkut users. This new trojan, however, hits Google where it hurts — its ever-swelling advertising revenues. It redirects Web ads from the AdSense program to a rival ad provider. Bitdefender, the Romanian security-software maker which identified the trojan, does not specify who is serving these third-party ads or how the trojan is propagating. Researchers do say that Google may be powerless to stop the attack, because the malware affects personal computers, not the company's ad servers. Google is unlikely to lose substantial sums, but the search giant cannot enjoy being this helpless. No wonder it's pushing antivirus software.

Google's Orkut attacked by worm, but no Americans notice

Tim Faulkner — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 18:00:06 EST

A relatively harmless worm has rampaged through Google's social network, Orkut. You probably haven't noticed. That's because Orkut, while popular in Brazil and India, is an also-ran in the U.S. Hundreds of thousands of Orkut users saw their accounts overwhelmed by spam on their "scrapbooks," Orkut's equivalent of Facebook's Wall.

The worm reportedly uses JavaScript and Flash code to create a new scrapbook entry, containing a New Year's message in Portuguese accompanied by a Flash ad. Once infected, the code propagates to your friends on the network, simply by their visiting your profile page. The worm may be related to a similar vulnerability discovered last year and supposedly fixed by Google, but details are scarce. It appears Google has responded quickly. Too bad. If Google had let the worm rampage, maybe some American users might actually hear about Orkut for the first time.

Social nerdwanking

Nick Douglas — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 09:46:57 EST

Coined by R. Stevens in his webcomic Diesel Sweeties, "social nerdwanking" means lording your social-network superiority over others, which is secretly the only reason you bother with Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, Orkut, and every other social network. Except your legitimate if fruitless use of Adult FriendFinder.

Orkut, the nosiest social network ever

Nicholas Carlson — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 08:07:10 EST

Want to know why Orkut never caught on? Google's motto is "don't be evil," not "don't be socially awkward." The programmatic list of "turn ons" it asks users to check off include "sarcasm," "tattoos," "erotica," "skinny dipping," and "long hair." A more perfect glimpse at the Google id won't be found anywhere. Here's the whole thing.

You'll note the list does not include Facebook's option for "random play." We're sure Marissa Mayer is working on that.

My answers? Assertiveness, power, wealth, thunderstorms and thrills. But only 'cause there's no box for Julia Allison and Jakob Lodwick.

Another minute, another Google Gang member

Nicholas Carlson — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 16:56:02 EDT

According to a source, blog-software company Six Apart has joined as another partner for Google's OpenSocial platform. For those of you keeping count at home, don't bother. The list is surely to grow as word gets out. Social network Friendster, for example, wasn't asked to join the Google Gang. The pioneering social network begged to be included after a story leaked on TechCrunch. Google's secrecy is making the whole "open" affair less than transparent, as different names leak to different reporters. Here's a list of media outlets and the OpenSocial partners they list.

The New York Times: Google's Orkut, LinkedIn, Hi5, Friendster, Plaxo and Ning
O'Reilly's Radar: Hi5, iLike, Slide, LinkedIn, Plaxo, Ning and Six Apart
TechCrunch: Orkut, Salesforce.com, LinkedIn, Ning, Hi5, Plaxo, Friendster, Viadeo and Oracle
Valleywag: Hi5, Orkut, LinkedIn, Friendster, Ning, Salesforce.com, and Oracle

Guess the only way to find out for sure who's involved is to attend CampFire Thursday night on the Google campus. We would, but we have a thing against CamelCase. But bring us back a s'more, wouldja?

(Photo by russelljsmith)

Fun facts about Orkut

Paul Boutin — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 13:48:55 EDT

Half of Google's revenue now comes from outside the U.S. That's why the Wall Street Journal spilled so much ink running down the company's problems in Brazil over Orkut, the world's No. 5 website. You probably stopped using Orkut 3 and 1/2 years ago, after signing up to get into the launch party. My fellow Wags were too busy giggling over the article's News Corp. disclaimer to actually read it. Here's a summary of the article's surprising stats.

Monthly unique users on Orkut shot up 57 percent over the past year.
Orkut generates no more complaints about kiddie porn than other social networks.
Brazilians use the Internet like crazy. Two-thirds of Brazilian net users use Orkut.
Google may stop stonewalling the Brazilian government, which wants info on alleged criminal users.

(Graphic by The Wall Street Journal)

WSJ reporters tweak new boss

Nicholas Carlson — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 13:45:26 EDT

The way News Corp. monarch Rupert Murdoch manipulates his many newspapers is enough to make Charles Foster Kane blush. It's one reason integrity-laden Wall Street Journal reporters lobbied against his takeover bid. But now it seems the mockingly self-righteous crew is starting to revel in their deal with the Aussie devil.

In a typically overdetailed, needlessly insightful examination of Google's troubles with its social network Orkut, in Brazil — which we didn't actually read, due to its gleefully excessive length — the Journal's Antonio Regalado and Kevin Delaney had fun with a disclaimer:

News Corp. has agreed to acquire Dow Jones & Co., the publisher of The Wall Street Journal. In addition, News Corp. and Google have an agreement for Google to sell ads that appear on MySpace and share the ad revenue.

The disclaimer struck us a bit of a stretch. And now, a tipster tells us Regalado stuck it in as a prank — a prank that sailed its way past the copydesk. Says a New York media source:

He joked that the disclaimer graph about News Corp, Google and Dow Jones is a funny/sad sign of the times. He said he suggested it just to be annoying.

Antonio, when Murdoch puts you on the street, my boss wants you to look him up. But only if you can cut those Orkut stories down to 200 words.

Stanford alums, Marissa wants to get some play!

Owen Thomas — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 22:06:41 EDT

Alas, poor Marissa Mayer, the Google executive who used to date company cofounder Larry Page. Her long workdays, documented in endless magazine profiles, have taken a toll on her love life. She broke up with former boyfriend Dave Jeske, another Googler, more than a year ago. No dating on the horizon, though: Her Facebook profile lists her as "single" and interested only in "friendship" and "random play." The latter, according to a quick poll of our friends, is Facebook code for one-night stands or makeout sessions. Maybe she'll get some of that at this weekend's Stanford reunion, which her profile says she's planning to attend. All of this, of course, is way more information than is listed in her profile on Orkut, Google's also-ran social network. And, perhaps, more information than anyone wanted to know.

Compete data confirms Facebook traffic drop

Jordan Golson — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 17:01:01 EDT

Earlier, we scoffed at the idea that Facebook's traffic could have dropped in September. Compete.com — the poor man's ComScore, which makes its traffic data publicly available — just released September data that shows a similar drop. Maybe Facebook has peaked. More likely: since the kids returned to college, the free time they had to screw around on Facebook this summer has disappeared in favor of schoolwork and frat parties. MySpace, Orkut and Bebo were all down in September too. Amid the hysteria about Facebook's traffic dropping, everyone seems to have forgotten that Facebook traffic was down last September as well.

Rest of world enjoys social networks, running water, electricity

Jordan Golson — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 18:27:42 EDT

Apparently, overseas, there are social networks other than Facebook and MySpace. Who knew? Read/WriteWeb mentions that social net Hi5 which tallies 35 million uniques per month according to ComScore, making it competitive with Facebook. And yet the name will draw blank stares at a Silicon Valley tech meetup. Like Google's Orkut, Hi5 is huge overseas and virtually nonexistent in the U.S. Hi5 even launched a developer API in August, but got scant coverage from the Web 2.0 crowd. The bias, of course, is partly driven by economics. Tapping overseas advertisers is tough, and so developers planning to build ad-supported websites and applications naturally turn to U.S. markets. But media myopia is a factor, too. Until magazine editors' teenage daughters start using it, Hi5 is likely to remain invisible.

Google's Orkut social network draws more...

Paul Boutin — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 15:54:10 EDT

Google's Orkut social network draws more pageviews per day than its search engine, according to a post by videoblogger and conference hound Robert Scoble. Yeah, we're having trouble believing it, too. Anyone got the numbers?

Wondering what Adaptive Path cofounder Jeffrey...

Megan McCarthy — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 18:59:21 EDT

Wondering what Adaptive Path cofounder Jeffrey Veen has been up to since Google hired him away last year? He's helping to revamp Orkut, Google's big-in-Brazil social network. [BusinessWeek]

Facebook repeats Google's ultimate humiliation

Owen Thomas — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 12:26:55 EDT

After a 15-11 loss in an ultimate frisbee match against a team of scrappy Facebookers, disc-flinging Googlers swore revenge. But the social network left the search engine, again, unable to find victory, dishing out another 15-12 tromping earlier this week. "All that free food weighing them down," snipes a Facebook-employed spectator of the match. Other Facebookers are more modest, crediting the Googlers for strongly competitive play — though some believe the Googlers may have brought on ringers who don't actually work for the company. Word is the Googlers want another rematch. What, are they trying to go for 3 out of 5? Have they seen what happened to Orkut? (Photo courtesy of the Ultimate Players Association)

ZDNet advises Yahoo to buy a department of Google

Nick Douglas — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 19:10:06 EDT

Some great reporting comes out of the once-dominant ZDNet news network. I just never happen to see it. Instead I see articles that scream "We don't do research." In the ZDNet article "How will Yahoo address social networking?" writer Larry Dignan suggests several sites that the company could buy, such as Facebook, Friendster ... or Orkut. Of course, there's not much chance Google would sell Orkut, a social network created by the Google employee shown here, to its competitor.