Scrap notices!

Posted by Scott Kirkwood, Software Engineer

We all love receiving scraps, but constantly checking back to your scrapbook page can be tedious. How many of us have our scrapbook page open and are clicking refresh on it constantly!

With scrap notices you can be on any orkut page and find out that you have received a scrap - that very minute. You could be browsing your friend's photos, and find out "hey! I just got a new scrap." Then you can click on the "Scrapbook" link to reply on the spot. This way you'll be free to explore all of orkut, comforted in the knowledge that when you have received a new scrap, you'll know about it that moment.

We'll be rolling this feature out over the new few days for all users, but If you really prefer clicking the refresh button all day long, you can go to settings to disable to the feature.

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orkut on your homepage!

Posted by Natalie Schwartz, orkut team

Did you know that instead of bookmarking the blog, or going to orkut.com and clicking on blog to see if we have updated the content, you can simply add this blog to your Google homepage? If you're unfamiliar with iGoogle, it is a customizable Google search page that you can add all sorts of gadgets to. In addition to adding any blog, you can select from a variety of games, tools, pictures and more to make your homepage your own. You can pick which gadgets you'd like to add from our Gadget directory. You can also bring your orkut birthdays to your homepage by adding the orkut birthday gadget. Some of my other favorites are the YouTube and Gmail gadgets. You can also select one of 11 themes or designs and color schemes that make your page more colorful. Just click on "Select theme" on your iGoogle page, and pick the one that best suits you. Some of them even change throughout the day based on your location, like the cityscape shown below. You can save your gadgets to the page simply by signing in to iGoogle with your Google account (the same sign-in you use for orkut). So next time you go to google.com, can click on "iGoogle" in the top left hand corner of the screen and see all of your stuff (or go directly to google.com/ig).

Have an idea for a gadget that you'd like on your iGoogle homepage? You can create one! Any developer can use our gadget API. Check it out to see how simple it is to create a gadget and upload and share it with the world.

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More orkut trends

Posted by Ellen Spertus, Research Scientist, and Torsten Nelson, Software Engineer

In our first column, we reported how orkut users rated their beauty by continent. In a poll in the orkut trends community, 69% of you said that you'd like to see the per-country ratings (while 21% said they already know their country has the most beauties). Interestingly, almost all of the comments about beauty were by men commenting on women. We aim to please, so here are the results.

Women from Mexico are most likely (29%) to describe themselves as "beauty contest winners" and the least likely (2%) to describe themselves as "mirror-cracking material". Men from Tonga tend to extremes, with the most (23%) claiming to be pageant winners and an equal number (23%) claiming to be mirror crackers. Uruguayan women are most likely (58%) to consider themselves average, as are 58% of Paraguayan men.

If we assign a numerical weight to each rating (1 for beauty contest winner, 2 for very attractive, etc.), we can get a single "beauty index" for each country's women or men, with lower scores meaning greater (self-rated) beauty, and female Mexicans and male Equatorial Guineans taking the lead. Here are how orkut's leading countries stack up:

country	female beauty index	male beauty index
Brazil	2.95	3.13
United States	2.82	3.15
United Kingdom	3	3.29
Pakistan	3.05	3.25
India	3.23	3.38

The complete data is available here.

Of course, anyone can claim to be beautiful, especially online, so the above rankings may say more about conceit and humility than about looks. As one user wrote, "Orkut can make a lot of money if they put tax on how beautiful people declare themselves to be."

What if you want to judge people's beauty yourself? Just a week after we announced that you can store up to 100 photos in your orkut album, more than 10,000 of you had already gone to the limit. Iranians averaged the fewest photos per person: only 4.1. At the other extreme were Myanmar (12.8) and the island nations of the Cook Islands (12.6), Jamaica (12.7), the Northern Mariana Islands (13.6), and Madagascar (13.8). Of the most popular orkut countries, Indians averaged 6.5 photos each, Pakistanis 6.7, Americans 7.9, Brits 9.3, and Brazilians 9.4, so most of you can increase your albums tenfold! Of course, as Cesar JB expressed, "The concept of beauty varies from one country [to] another". In any case, statistics can give us information but not wisdom, such as that expressed 2500 years ago by Confucius: "Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it."

Until next time, stay beautiful, each in your own wonderful way.

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Thanks from an orkuteer

Posted by Prashant, orkuteer*

*orkuteers are members outside of Google who have shown incredible dedication and been active in our orkut Help Group. Prashant has written his story, and has let us share it with you. Read more.

I'm excited to write this, since I want to thank orkut for making this great social networking site for all of us :-). orkut was new to me when I joined in early 2006. I wasn't really excited to open an account at that time, but finally accepted a friend's request to join. Now I'm so happy that I did.

I think communities are the most interesting thing on orkut. In the early days, I was addicted to creating communities about certain social issues, as well as ones on subjects like education and travel. The great thing about communities is that they bring people from all over the world together. On Jan. 1, 2007, I helped to create the Marathi Yuva community. Marathi is a regional Indian language, and Yuva means youth. The aim of this community was to introduce Marathi youth to one another and to get people together to perform social work in our area. We've had one meeting this year so far, where after knowing each other in the virtual world, we came together in reality. It was so much fun to meet everyone in person. We've really become friends both on orkut and outside as well. I've gained real-life friends from all over Maharashtra. We've got another meeting coming up soon in Mumbai, which will hopefully bring in new members who have new ideas.

Through orkut, I've gained many good and caring friends, and have also stayed close to many school and college friends whom I'd have otherwise lost touch with. orkut brings the opportunity to talk and reminisce about old days, even with someone you haven't seen in 5 years. I feel that orkut is also helping me to grow as a professional through sharing experiences and thoughts in in various communities. It's been a great platform for me to develop myself.

orkut has grown a lot since I first started visiting the site. Lots of great new features have been added recently, which makes it even more fun! My recent favorites are photo and rich-content scraps, the redesigned look, scrapbook privacy, being able to add up to 100 pics to the photo album and orkut's availability in 5 regional Indian languages. I'm always looking forward to what's next.

Since I've been on orkut, helping others has become my passion. In the beginning of June, I happened to visit the orkut Help Group, where you can find help about any orkut query from other members. I suddenly found the perfect platform to help other people, which is my way to give back a little bit in return for all that orkut's given me :-) In addition, I've met friends like Rakesh, Nabeel [FlIrT], the other orkuteers, and of course, our favorite: Robin, a.k.a orkut Guide.

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Now see 10 recent profile visitors!

Posted by Anna Hentzel, Software Engineer

If you're not busy checking scraps, chances are you are checking out who visited your profile lately. After all, aren't you curious who's taking an interest in you, checking out your photos, and keeping up with the things going on in your life? Even if they don't leave you a scrap, you still know they care :)

In fact, increasing the number of recent visitors listed has been a very popular request, and so starting today, you'll see your ten most recent profile visitors instead of five. Of course, if you'd rather no one saw whose profiles you've been visiting, you can go to "settings" and click on the privacy tab to opt out.

We like it when you show an interest in orkut by sending us suggestions, and your friends like it when you show an interest in them. So keep letting us know what we can do to make orkut better, by telling us in the orkut Help Group, and keep letting your friends know you care by visiting their profiles!

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Add your Picasa Web Photos to your Scrapbook!

Posted by Anisha Malhorta, Software Engineer

A couple months ago, we announced that you could add HTML or links to your friends' scrapbooks so that they could enjoy photos, videos or other rich content. We've seen you add photos of your friends, flyers to promote your concerts, video slide shows from slide.com and rockyou.com, animations to celebrate Independence Day and more to each other's scrapbooks. In order to make it simpler to add photos, you can now access all your Picasa Web Albums from the photo picker. Simply go to your friend's scrapbook, click on "add photo" and select the "Picasa Web Album" tab in the photo picker (shown below).

This way if you've got hundreds of photos on Picasa Web (like me!) you can easily have your pick of the best ones by grabbing it right from the album, rather than having to re-upload photos from your computer. Or, if you're on a shared computer where you don't have your photos stored, you can easily access them. If you haven't tried Picasa Web yet, you can use your orkut login and password to sign up for a Picasa account here. In addition to being able to add individual photos directly from Picasa Web Albums to your friends scrapbooks, you can also add slideshows. To do so, go directly to Picasa Web, click on the album you'd like to use and then click "Embed Slideshow" in the left navigation. You'll get a small pop-up containing HTML which you can copy and paste directly into your friend's orkut scrapbook. You can also add your Picasa Web Albums as an orkut feed so all your friends can check out your newest photos!

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Lighting the way for Diwali

Posted by Robin Norvell, orkut Operations Team

Many orkut users (and a number of our engineering and operations staff) are celebrating the festival of Diwali this week. Never one to miss an important occasion, orkut wanted to find a unique way to recognize this national holiday. In India, lots of people pass around sweets and snacks to celebrate.

In keeping with this tradition, here's something new and 'sweet' when you log in: just in time for the annual festival of lights, you'll see a Diwali theme that transforms the site before your eyes! If you're located in India and have signed into orkut in the last day or so, you may have noticed something different about your profile: a small lamp icon next to your email address at the top of the page. If you click on the lamp (also called a diya) or the "Happy Diwali!" message, you'll be rewarded with a fun scene of firecrackers and celebrations set against an outline of some famous Indian landmarks.

Last year, our team posted a Diwali doodle on the login page, but we decided to go a step further this year by creating orkut's very first profile theme. We also thought it would be fun to let you discover this option on your own, instead of automatically changing it for everyone. If for some reason, you'd prefer the usual orkut look, simply click on the lamp or the message again, and ta-da, back to normal. But keep in mind that the theme will only last for a few more days, so enjoy it while you have it.

Who knows, maybe you'll see more themes in the future for special occasions. Until then, happy holidays to you all!

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Keeping your username and password secure

Posted by Filipe Lima, orkut Operations Team

These days many users' accounts can be compromised through social engineering techniques such as phishing schemes or malicious scripts and programs guised as being legitimate, and lose their usernames and passwords. Here is a simple guide to keep your account secure:

• The orkut team will never ask for your username and password, if you receive an email asking for those details don't give them to anyone; it wasn't sent by us.
• Be aware of every link that you open: you might be redirected to a page where you'll be asked to install a really cool feature which is in fact a malicious program that will give out your private information
• If you're logged into orkut, and after clicking on a link, you're prompted to login again, check the URL; if it's not www.orkut.com, don't login! Some links redirect you to phishing pages, where the page is absolutely identical to the real orkut one, but your account information will be sent to the attacker.
• Always logout from orkut when you want to finish your session, and if you are on a public computer, clear you cache and cookies before leaving-this is really important!
• Change you password several times a year, and when you do, use a password that's easy to remember but difficult to guess.
• Don't write your password anywhere!
• Don't share your account with your soulmate. In the unfortunate event that your relationship ends this can cause you a lot of problems.
  

These safety tips are not unique to orkut. You should follow the same advice for email sites, or any other site that requires a username and password.

I hope this friendly reminder will help you maintain your beloved profile in peace :)

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Ask Friends – Share, plan, communicate with friends

Posted by Shivaram Venkataraman, Software Engineer

It was party time the other day when we launched SMS Search in India. We have a team with diverse tastes and opinions; finding a restaurant to satisfy all was an unenviable task that somehow landed on my plate. In a fit of inspiration, I decided to use the new orkut feature we had launched just recently, it was time to test its potential to help me ask questions of friends who knew my tastes and preferences.

I turned on the "ask friends" feature from the "add stuff" page, brought up the feature from my left nav bar and typed in: "Can you suggest a location in Bangalore that has good North Indian food, a themed restaurant and really super dessert options nearby? And in case we change our mind, it would be ideal to have Mexican or South Indian food not too far from this location."

This was a challenging question and I didn't know who among my friends would be able answer it. So I chose the "Ask among friends" option, and decided to let the system route the question to some of my orkut friends. I was hoping that the system would find friends who had answered similar questions or were resident experts on restaurants unknown to me.

I got three useful answers. But the answer that really helped came from my HR colleague and orkut friend who happened to be browsing my orkut profile. I scrapped back a heartfelt thank you.

Then it was time to find out how many of my teammates would actually turn up for the party. So I accessed "ask friends" again and typed in another question: "Got a really promising place for the party. Are you coming? You can also call and let me know on my cell". This time I chose the "Ask individual friends" option because I didn't want all of my orkut friends to know about the party and call me.

Over the next day all of them said yes; there were the usual wisecracks that you have to expect from my team. I was able to see all the answers in one place in the "ask friends" feature, find the phone number of the restaurant (using SMS Search, of course) and make a reservation. We had a fun party. It was cool to use this feature to ask friends questions that got me personalized answers.

Hopefully you'll have fun using this feature too. Let us know how it goes for you here. I hope we'll have enough cause for another small party within our team. Of course, this time I'm going to make sure someone else from the team organizes the party. :)

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orkut opens to developers

Posted by Amar Gandhi, orkut Product Manager

The orkut team continually tries to build new features based on your feedback -- features that help you better express yourself and communicate with friends. But no matter how hard we work, we can't build features fast enough for you. So to bring you as many new features as possible, today we're announcing that third-party developers will be able to build additional social experiences right into orkut. While we will be sure to maintain security, privacy and ease of use, opening up orkut to developers means that soon you will be able to add dynamic new applications that will make your orkut experience all the better.

The applications will use your current connections to help you better communicate with others and do fun new things in orkut. And they will be integrated just like regular orkut features, such as your scrapbook or testimonials. Application pages will look and feel like regular orkut pages, and you will be able to access them from the lefthand navigation bar after you add them. An example of an application might be a tool that lets you rate your favorite music or movies for your friends to see, or one that allows you to draw pictures on a friend's profile page.

You will have to opt-in to any application to use it and give it permission to access your profile. And as always, we will never sell your personal information and we have no intentions of making your contacts publicly available. You will be able to add or delete these applications any time you wish but even if you don't have a certain application, you will still be able to interact with it on your friends' profile pages if they install it. Of course, we are also going to monitor orkut for any inappropriate or malicious applications, and if you ever see one you think is offensive, you will be able to report it to us.

You won't see any changes in orkut immediately, but over the next several weeks developers will be playing in our "sandbox," a separate online site developers can use to test apps. Essentially, we're allowing developers to try out their apps to make sure they work properly before offering them to orkut users. Eventually, you'll be able to select applications you like and add them to your profiles, but this won't happen until later on. We also want to make it clear that once we make applications available, nothing will change in orkut by default -- you'll simply have the option to add your favorite applications to your profile (and delete them if you choose) and interact with friends in entirely new ways.

On a more technical level, orkut will be the first website to use a new web technology called OpenSocial, which allows developers to use web standards (such as HTML and Javascript) to build new social applications in orkut. This means developers can enhance orkut using technologies they are already familiar with, and can run their applications in any other website that supports OpenSocial. We are also working with developers in places where orkut is especially popular, to make sure the applications are engaging to you. To learn more, please watch our YouTube video about this news, or if you are a developer interested in building apps for orkut using OpenSocial, check out our website which is full of resources and developer information. We'll update you here about launch plans and show you screenshots of cool applications created for orkut, so stay tuned.

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