Orkut turns 7!

Disclaimer: this is not going to be a story telling about Orkut, and neither is this blog turning into a ‘website’ event tracking one. So don’t worry these are NOT the only topics I would blog about. Earlier one about Wikipedia turning 10 is here. More shall come.

So back to news, Orkut turned 7 this Monday! Ironically, it was the 7th month of last year when it lost its numero uno social networking status to FaceBook. As an erstwhile Orkutter I can only blame it for being dull for its death.

I remember my first update on FB was a note mentioning that I am more active on Orkut and so requesting my friends to add me there instead. This was after a zillion invites from my freinds the ‘early adopters’ from beyond India. For some reasons FB never took off so well in India.

Little did I know that I would end up being an active FaceBook user in some time!

It was October 2009, when FaceBook first overtook Orkut in India.

Orkut had the upper-hand due to a simple UI, its light on bandwidth status and ‘its uber cool IN’ imagery. It also had ‘better’ privacy controls back then. Sadly that’s probably the last of the ‘innovations’ that I could think of!

FaceBook at that time looked awry, confusing and weird! A wall visible to everyone, was automatically considered as intrusion to privacy! My friend Santa Singh had proudly written on his wall… “Santa Singhs wall, Yaha peshaab karna mana hain”
😛

FaceBook had a decent number of UI changes, make that confusing UI changes. Sadly Orkut followed.. This wasn’t the first time that FaceBook brought in a fresh perspective. With the zillion funny applications, it wooed people with silly but funy (or apparently funny) quizzes. It was only a matter of time when this would turn into a platform for ‘social’ gaming! The popularity of the quizzes and the games soon ensured people flocking to FaceBook more, and if they are already there.. Spend more time there! Zynga soon became a household name!

Orkut tried aping that, and I must say it was annoying… It tried giving themes which were more of a memory bloat and soon became annoying with people making jazzy homepages and kept inviting everybody! The google talk integration with the website as an alternative to FB Chat was irritating too! Without the ability to create list of people from whom you want to hide on chat, it meant everyone on your Google account could see you online!

FaceBook had a chink in its armour with privacy issues too, but it was nimble and fresh as ever in dealing with these!

As I write and shuffle with FB on my BB, its still amazing to know that there isn’t an Orkut app for BB yet! I remember having a beta app, which never got released!!!

The list goes on and on, but I guess I should stop, considering its 7th birthday! No more Orkut bashing for now!

My expectations for the 8th year..
1) A proper light application on all platforms
2) Integration with YouTube
3) Integration with Latitude
4) Integration with Google Docs
5) Integration with Google checkout
6) Integration and more space via picassa!
7) Integration with google groups and better mail syndication
8) A lighter theme!
9) Better SPAM control
10) Back to Invitation only format for new features to clean it from fake and stupid profiles

Happy Birthday!