Mecworks

Well, as far as social networking communities out there, ala Friendster, Orkut, Multiply, etc…it seems that there are too many. It’s always nice to have competition but there’s a point where too many choices presents a situation where none take a leading role. When there’s no leader, there’s effectively no competition as there’s no one to be better than. Interesting anyway and it may not hold true.

One of the things I’ve noticed on Orkut is that it’s lustre has faded. I’m not really sure why that is. I don’t think it’s because the populous is now 60% Brazilian. I don’t mind that at all. There was an annoying point at which several posts and conversations in English communities were held in Portuguese. I felt that was kind of rude and inconsiderate and didn’t see any other nationalities doing similar. I see from several other people’s comments in the communities that they feel that Orkut was sort of “taken over” by Brazil. Again, I don’t mind having multiple cultures - in fact, I think it’s one of the best features and pluses of the Internet and Orkut. I believe they were pissed off because of the rude attitude shown by some Brazilians. I personally saw several rude comments on both sides.

So, that may be one factor as to why Orkut has lost some luster. Another point is certainly the license that Orkut has - basically, they own everything you put on your pages there. In addition, there haven’t been many improvements or additional features to the site in several months. Compared with Friendster, who always seems to be adding something. Granted, Orkut recently added Orkut Media. Orkut Media’s purpose is to focus on member’s writings and photos with weekly updates. It’s interesting, but not revolutionary IMO. I don’t think it really adds that much to the site and their purpose, I’m guessing is to try to keep people logging in and “living” on the site. Because of a low-draw potential, I don’t think it will increase the amount of people who “live” on Orkut.

Orkut has, almost from the beginning, suffered from performance issues. Regardless from where I connect, be it a high-speed connection from work or my DSL line from home, daytime and evening hours are almost unbearable on Orkut. There are server errors (”Bad, bad server. No donut for you”…bla bla bla) and timeouts that have constantly plagued the service. It seems that since Google is seeing little revenue (apart from selling data collected from personal data, I’m guessing) from Orkut, it is being placed on the back burner in Google’s kitchen. They are now accountable to share holders. There are very few publicly traded companies that can place ideals and ethics above shareholder value. This results in companies that have little or no moral bearing in their decision making. All that matters over time (regardless of how they intended to be before their IPO) is their bottom line and the share price.

It’s sad that the way companies and people in corporate leadership positions are rewarded, enhances blind-sidedness towards moral and ethical in the ways of doing business and treating customers and employees.

So, what does Google need to do to make Orkut an success? There are probably several things that could happen but here are some ideas that have thought about:

• Add services and features that allow people to express themselves outside of the Orkut framework. Stop trying to confine all activities and information to the area defined by Orkut. Friendster recently added the ability to add RSS feed for an individual’s BLOG. Way cool IMO.
• Create ways that encourage cross-culturalism without conflict. Promote users creating and making friends outside their normal boundaries. Maybe contest for finding out certain things about people you have never met on Orkut and ways to increase communication.
• Look for ways to improve performance. Using Orkut during the daytime or evening is very painful. It’s not much fun to access it late at night or early morning either. This may require that Google look into ways to make more money from Orkut so that it not only supports itself but becomes a revenue stream that is then seen as a value to the company rather than a loss-leader.
• Add better searching capability. Last I heard, Google had some awesome searching technology…
• More…?

If you are ever logged in and would like to drop by my Orkut or Friendster pages, please do so…