Prizes for Panchayats– using orkut to reward grassroots innovation

We here at Google.org are excited to announce a contest that we hope many of you orkuteers are able to get involved in: the Google.org Gram Panchayat Puraskar (GGPP). For those of you who don't already know, Panchayats were Mahatma Gandhi’s original vision for a free India – an India made up of thousands of “little Republics” where people meet their needs through self-reliance. Today, panchayats are responsible for implementing development programs. They often create positive change at the grassroots level, but we think that their success stories aren’t always as well known as they should be.

To help celebrate innovative panchayats and encourage more innovation in local governance throughout India, we've created the first Google.org Gram Panchayat Puraskar (GGPP). We'll reward the top five panchayats in two states, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, with a cash prize of Rs.5 lakhs (approximately $10,000 USD) which they can use to do more good in their communities.

The prize will be awarded in one of six areas: education, health and nutrition, water supply, rural infrastructure, rural electrification, and resource mobilization. The winning payanchat must include a wide variety of social and income groups, share information with villagers, respond to citizen feedback, and track the quality of programs.

Think your gram panchayat has what it takes to win? Sign up for the contest now and tell us why! To enter, you can either visit the contest website at www.google.org/ggpp.html, or pick-up an application at your district or block panchayat office in Karnataka or Andhra Pradesh. The contest is only open for applications through January 25, 2009 though, so don't waste any time!

Wanna learn more? Be sure to check out the official GGPP page that we've created for this contest, and of course join the GGPP orkut community. With our orkut community, you can ask questions, read related news, and most importantly, get to know other people interested in fostering social change in their local region.

Check out what Mr. Mani Shankar Aiyar, the Union Minister of Panchayat Raj had to say about the competition:





Hope to see you on orkut and hear about all of the great innovations that your panchayats have come up with soon!

Posted by Salimah Samji, Program Manager, Inform & Empower and Meryl Stone, Senior Associate, Inform & Empower, Google.org.

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A special holiday treat from the orkut team

If there's one thing that the orkut team loves, it's the holidays. The twinkling lights, the cheerful music, the snow...(okay, maybe not snow for most of us), all make this one of the most magical times of year.

To help you share in the holiday spirit with us and all of your orkut friends, we've decided to try something new and (hopefully!) exciting this year: a special holiday page on orkut.

With this page you can create holiday parties using the events tool, send season's greetings to friends and relatives using photos and videos, and play with three fun, holiday themed apps.

Already excited? Check out this screenshot of the page now:


Working with the talented developers at BuddyPoke, StudioSol and Gartic.com, we've compiled a selection of three apps featuring special holiday promotions. Here's a quick list of the apps and a few details about all of the cool ways you can join in the holiday cheer:

• BuddyPoke
• Dance with Santa, kiss under the mistletoe, give presents to friends and much more
  
• My Music
• Check out a Christmas music playlist with your friends
  
• Christmas Tree
  
• Create and decorate your very own Christmas tree and send presents to friends

The holidays are all about sharing things with the people you care about, so be sure to tell your friends about the special holiday page on orkut. Just remember, this page will only be around for a few weeks, so be sure to visit it now. Hope your holidays are healthy, happy and safe!

Posted by Miles Johnson, Marketing Manager.

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The Earth's Vital List: What are the 12 things you can't live without?

The orkut team has come across another cool app that we think many of you may enjoy using and sharing with your friends: 'The Earth's Vital List.' This app is part of a global digital campaign for Fox's remake of the 1951 film The Day The Earth Stood Still. The campaign mimics the film's premise— Earth and human life are threatened by extinction from an alien race of super-robot enforcers.

'The Earth's Vital List' app begs the question: If the Earth was under attack and you and your possessions could be protected in an alien sphere, what would you save?



With the app, you can build 'vital lists'– lists of 12 prized possessions that you would want to save from extinction on "The Day the Earth Stands Still". In building your list, you can upload personal photos of all of your must-have items. You can then share your 'vital list' with your friends, allowing them to comment and vote on the things you chose.

A global 'vital list' micro-site tabulates the votes across all social networks and languages and allows people to view how their items rank in comparison to the rest of the world. A countdown to the film's debut (12/12/08) will coincide with a special reveal on orkut displaying the final world's vital list of the top 1,212 prized possessions.

So check out the app and find out what things your friends and people all around the world just can't live without.

Posted by Miles Johnson, Marketing Manager.

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I'm a fan of this app!

As I'm sure you all know by now, orkut is jam packed with fun and quirky OpenSocial apps that allow you to do just about anything you can imagine. From time to time, we stumble across an app that everybody in the office can't seem to get enough of. Whenever this happens, our first move is always to pass it on to you guys. In that spirit, I'm excited to share with you the newest app to take over my personal life: iFan.

iFan lets you to choose your favorite celebrities and access the latest videos, news and blog postings about them in one central place, making it easy for you to talk to and share with other fans. You can also find out which celebs your friends are into by looking at who they've labeled as their favorites (I discovered that Rahul, one of the Product Managers on the orkut team, loves the Beatles even more than I do. Who knew?).

Check out a screenshot of some of my favorite celebs here:



For all of you who are as celebrity crazed as I am, you'll be happy to know that iFan also lets you jazz up your profile by displaying the pictures of your favorite celebrities for everyone who visits to see.

Here's a page dedicated to one of my favorite musical artists, Justin Timberlake, full of up-to-date info, news articles, and videos from YouTube:



Not only does iFan make it easy for you to find information about your favorite stars, it also keeps a running tab on each celeb's popularity based on the number of users who've added him/her to their favorites list. These celebrity rankings are updated every 5 minutes, helping you stay "in the know" about whether your idols are in or out.

Check out this video the iFan developers made showing off their app in action:



Is there an app that you love and think should be featured on the orkut blog? Send us a note and let us know what it is and why you love it so much.

Posted by Miles Johnson, Marketing Manager.

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Share the (photographic) wealth! Now you can share your orkut photos with whoever you want

It seems like pretty much everyone knows at least one person who loves photography. The orkut team is no different– Navneet, one of the orkut engineers, is absolutely obsessed with taking pictures. Whenever we leave the office, he immediately whips out his camera and starts snapping photos of everything in sight. (I once caught him taking a close-up picture of my left foot– needless to say, I was not pleased.) All of these photos are of course uploaded to orkut, where he invites his orkut friends to compliment him on his artistic prowess. Like any budding artiste, however, our Navneet is constantly seeking exposure to a wider audience. To help Navneet share his "gift" with the world, and to help all of the rest of us stay connected with our friends who don't have orkut accounts, we're excited to announce a new photo sharing feature on orkut. Now you can share your orkut photos with all of your friends who have email addresses, whether they use orkut or not.

Here's how it works:

When you create an album, go to the "share with" drop down menu and choose "only selected friends". In addition to being able to enter the names of your friends on orkut who you want to share photos with, now you can include the email addresses of all of your friends who aren't on orkut as well.




If you decide that you want to share or stop sharing an album that you've already uploaded, just click on the blue "Share Album" button to add/remove whichever friends you want from your "Currently Shared List."



All of the non-orkut friends that you've included in the list will be emailed a special URL bringing them to your photo album. As this is a limited-access orkut page, your non-orkut friends will not be able to view your profile or any other part of orkut unless they join the site.

Keep in mind that non-orkut friends who receive the link to your orkut photo albums can (and, if your photos are interesting enough, probably will) forward it on to other people who may also want to check your photos out. The only way to ensure absolute privacy over your photos is to restrict your album to specific orkut friends, as we showed you in the last blog post.

So, whether you want to share your graduation glamour shots with all of your friends and relatives (even the ones who've never used orkut), or have photos from the party that you threw last weekend that you'd rather limit to just a few people, photo albums on orkut now give you the ability to choose.

As Navneet can attest to, sharing photos is too much fun to limit just to orkut users. So get out there and start inviting all of your friends, family, and coworkers to join in the experience with you!

Posted by Kuldeep Gharat and Shivaram Venkatraman, Software Engineers

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Photo albums on orkut– the control is in your hands

When I get together with my buddies for a party, we often tend to get a little silly. Whether my friend Vidya starts lip-syncing Beyonce's latest hit or one of the software engineers decides to challenge a product manager to a wrestling match, we always have a great time and end up with tons of pictures. But when I go to upload the photos on orkut, I often find myself in a dilemma. While I'd love to share the photos of the shenanigans that went down at the party with my friends who were there, I don't especially want everyone on my orkut friends list to be able to see them. In order to resolve this issue once and for all, now you can choose specific friends to share each of your different photo albums with.

If you want to customize the privacy settings on a new photo album you're creating, choose the "selected friends" option from the "share with:" drop down menu. Enter the beginnings of the names of your orkut friends, and the system will automatically complete the names for you.

To make sure that your friends know that you've uploaded pictures for them to check out, you can send them a customizable email invitation (look for the checkbox) that links directly to the album. No matter what, your friends will receive an update from you on their home page when you share an album specifically with them.

If you change your mind about who can view any of your existing albums, or think of more friends to add, you can go to any existing album and click on the blue "Share" button. In the box that pops up, you can see who the album is currently shared with and easily grant or take away access.

Now that I have total control over who can see my photos, I'll definitely be posting pictures of a lot more karaoke nights, dance-offs, and impromptu celebrity impersonations soon. You'll have to take my word for it though, because I'm only going to share these photos with my other wild and crazy friends. :-)

As always, we'd love for you to tell us what you think of this feature. Looking forward to to hearing from you!

Posted by Arijit De, Software Engineer

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Fully integrated chat in orkut– that's what I'm talkin' 'bout!

As so many of our friends are constantly on orkut, sending scraps, commenting on photos, and bumping hips on BuddyPoke, we figured it was time to make it easy for you to chat directly with your orkut friends whenever they come online. That's why we are excited to announce a fully integrated version of Google Talk that works seamlessly from within orkut, with no install or separate window required.



I'm sure many of you (especially you social butterflies with hundreds of orkut friends), are concerned about being bombarded with chat requests every time you go online. Not to worry! To get you started, we've come up with a formula that automatically predicts which of your orkut friends you probably want to chat with, and only tells those people that you're signed into Google Talk. Our formula takes a bunch of things into consideration, giving preference to people who you've labeled as 'best friends' or written scraps to recently, and people who have friends in common with you.

We realize that no one knows who you'd like to talk to better than you do, so we've also made it easy for you to add and remove people from your list of orkut chat friends. To make changes to the list, just go to the revamped Google Talk settings page. Don't worry, only you can see your list of chat friends, so there's no need to worry about any hurt feelings when you make changes. :-)

If you already use Google Talk, either on its own or as part of Gmail, then your friends signed into Google Talk in other applications will also be able to chat with you when you come online.



To sum up, the new Google Talk in orkut lets you:

• chat with your orkut friends in real time from directly within orkut
• control which of your orkut friends can chat with you
• chat with your Google Talk and Gmail chat contacts
• visit different orkut pages while keeping your chatboxes open

We hope you have as much fun with this new feature as we've had creating it. We'll be rolling it out to all of our users over the next few weeks, so keep your eyes peeled for a note from us.

In the meantime, check out this video that we've made to show you how chatting on orkut works:



Posted by Scott Kirkwood, Software Engineer

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With the new Google Toolbar, orkut's never more than a click away

If you're anything like me, you probably spend a lot of time on orkut. It seems like no matter what I set out to do online, I always end up remembering a friend that I desperately need to scrap, finding a new set of photos that I absolutely need to check out, or getting an invite to an event on orkut that I simply can't miss. Whatever the reason, I'm usually busted by my coworkers with orkut open in at least two different windows at any given time. Thankfully, using orkut is a pretty important part of my job, so they usually let it slide. ;-)

With orkuteers like myself in mind, the Google Toolbar team has created a new version of Toolbar for Internet Explorer that makes it even easier to access orkut. With this new version, you can quickly and easily search orkut no matter what website you happen to be visiting.

To get started searching orkut from anywhere on the web, just go to the "Search" pull-down menu on the upper left-hand side of your screen and select "orkut". Now anytime you want to search for a term on orkut, you can just type it into the search box on your toolbar and voilà!, you'll go straight to the orkut search results page.



Google Toolbar also lets you add a custom orkut button to your toolbar that gives you one-click access to the orkut sign-in page.

To add an orkut button to your toolbar, just go to the Button Gallery and select 'orkut'.



For those times when I manage to use the Internet for things other than hanging out on orkut (it's a constant battle for me), I've found that Google Toolbar for Internet Explorer and for Firefox has a number of other cool new features worth checking out. Here are a few of my favorite features:

- Add gadgets to your Toolbar for easy access to content from your favorite websites
- Synchronize your settings online so you can use your Toolbar from any computer
- Create multiple profiles in AutoFill to keep your business and personal information separate

To learn about all of the different features that the new version of Toolbar offers, check out the Toolbar website: toolbar.google.com/features.

Have a Google Toolbar story that you want to share? Send the team a quick note, I'm sure they'd love to hear from you.

Hope this makes accessing orkut even easier and more fun!

Posted by Miles Johnson, Marketing Manager.

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A very eventful post

We on the orkut team love talking to our friends online, but there are also plenty of times when we'd really like to hang out with them in person. To make it easier for you to get together with old friends and meet new ones, we've added an events tool to orkut.

To create an event, just click the "events" button on the left side of your home page or profile. After you choose a creative title for your party/meeting/hot-dog eating contest and pick a good time for it to start, you can invite any of your orkut friends. To help ensure that all of your friends know how to find you, the orkut events tool will automatically create a Google Map of whatever location you choose. All you have to do is click "add more details" and type your event's location into the box labeled "address." If you'd like to make your plans a bit more exclusive, there are three privacy settings that you can choose from to restrict who can participate in and even view the event.

Check out the invitation I made for the going-away party I'm throwing on November 29th:



With the new orkut events tool you can easily:

• personalize your event with a creative title, description, and picture
• map your event's location just by typing in the address
• control whether your event will be a public gathering or a private party
• invite all of your orkut friends
  
• add photos from your event to remember it long after it's over
• manage your busy social schedule from anywhere there's an internet connection
  

So get out there and start turning your party plans into reality. Just don't forget to post pictures from your events for your guests to see and comment on!

Posted by Miles Johnson, Marketing Manager.

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This year's Diwali theme

After a year of waiting, it's finally Diwali time again in India this week, and many of us on the orkut team could not be more excited. Every year we're more and more impressed by the creative ways that you use orkut to celebrate the holidays, like the 'I Love Diwali' community that's been keeping a running countdown to Diwali over the past year.

You've inspired us so much with your Diwali excitement that we've created an official Diwali theme for 2008. If you haven't seen it yet, take a look at this:

If you're using orkut in India and you'd like to add a few Diwali fireworks to your orkut profile, just click the "change theme" button next to your email address at the top of your home page and select "Fireworks!" from the Themes directory. If you see a friend's profile you like, click the "Get this theme" link on the top right corner of the page.




If you'd prefer the usual orkut look or any of the other fun themes available, just go to the Themes tab on the Edit Profile page to style your profile differently. A word of caution: official orkut themes are available only from the 'Orkut Themes' directory under your own 'Edit Profile' page. Scraps and messages that promise colorful themes with celebrities, etc. asking you to click certain links or copy-paste code into your browser window usually spell trouble. (In general, it is a bad idea to copy-paste code from unidentified sources into your browser window -- even if it promises to increase cell phone battery life or grant access to the fountain of youth.) So stay safe and keep orkut beautiful!

We hope you enjoy sporting the new theme in the weeks to come. Here's wishing you a fun time as you make new beginnings and celebrate the bonds of family and friendship during this festive time! And if you're using orkut in a cool and fun way to celebrate the holidays, send us an email and let us know. We'd love to feature you on the blog.

Posted by Arun Kanagasabapathy and Nishant Redkar, Software Engineers

[UPDATE: So many of you have adopted the 'Fireworks theme' since we launched it on October 24th that we've decided to make this an ongoing tradition. Send us your ideas and sketches for what next year's Diwali theme should look like and you might see your design become an official orkut theme!]

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Need to know which apps to add? Just ask your friends!

Applications (apps) on orkut have quickly become one of the most popular additions that we've made to the site. Orkut currently offers over 600 apps, and that number continues to grow all the time.

With so many apps to choose from, we recognize that trying to decide which ones to use can get pretty overwhelming. Personally I've found that one of the best ways to learn about new things and hot trends is by checking out what my friends are doing. With this in mind, the orkut team has added a new feature to the apps directory that allows you to see, and quickly add, the apps that your friends are using.

When you visit the app directory, you'll not only be able to see the most popular apps and the newest additions, but also three different apps that your friends have added.



If you haven't checked this feature out already, just click the "add apps" button to find out which games and tools your friends like. Hope you discover some fun ones!

Posted by Priya Mandawat, Software Engineer.

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Keeping orkut beautiful

One of the coolest things about social networking is that it lets all different kinds of people come together and express their unique personalities and interests. Most of the time this is positive, helping people around the world make new friends and learn new things. However, any time lots of different people interact, there are bound to be some differences in opinion as to what kinds of things are appropriate. With these concerns in mind, we've decided to introduce a new feature on orkut: the "Safety Filter."

Here's a quick overview of how it works:

The new "Safety Filter" automatically screens for content that may not violate our Community Standards, but that some of you have let us know that you'd rather not see. With the "Safety Filter" on, whenever you come across a page with photos or text that we think you might be bothered by (such as sexually suggestive phrases or images) , you'll receive a warning and the mature content will be replaced by special icons. No filter is 100% accurate, so if you see a page that you think should be blocked, just flag it as always and let us know.

Right now, we're in the process of automatically turning the Safety Filter on for all of you who use orkut in India. We'll be rolling it out to the rest of world in the next few weeks. If you decide that you'd like to turn the Safety Filter off, just go to your "Settings" page. Regardless of whether you choose to use the new Safety Filter or not, orkut's tough policies against explicit content will still be in place.

We hope this new update helps to make orkut an even more fun and safe place for all of you.

Have an opinion on this new feature? Send us an email and let us know! We always love to hear your thoughts.

Posted by Ranveer Kunal, Software Engineer.

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Your photo albums just got more fun

Here on the orkut team, we often find ourselves crowded around a computer checking out photos of the cool things our friends are doing. It's a fun way to stay connected with people who we can't always see in person. In fact, we spend so much of our free time on orkut using the photos feature that we decided to change a few things to help make the experience even better. We're pretty excited about the changes that we've made, and wanted to be sure that we shared them with you.

Here's a quick rundown of some of the new things you'll see when you click the "photos" button:

1. Photo albums reorganized into an easy-to-use list with the most recently updated albums displayed on top
   
2. Privacy settings that you (and only you), can see for each album right on your "photos" page
   
3. Links to view, edit, and add photos to an album on your "photos" page
   

Take a look at the new "photos" page below:

We think one of the coolest updates to the photos feature on orkut is the new "photos of me" tab. When you click it, you can see all of the photos that your friends have tagged of you on one page, allowing you to be sure that orkut only catches you at your very best. :-)



Hope you enjoy the updates!

Posted by Abhishek Surana, Software Engineer.

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Take a stand against poverty on orkut

The orkut team loves hearing about all of the interesting ways that different people use orkut. When something really cool comes our way, we try to spread the word to as many of you as possible. Recently we learned about an important project hosted by the United Nations Millennium Campaign that is using an orkut community to take a stand against global poverty. Check out what their campaign has to say and join their orkut community!

From the folks at the UNMC:


Stand UP Take ACTION 17- 19 Oct, 2008



In 2000, the leaders of 189 countries signed the Millennium Declaration with the vision to do everything in their power to end poverty. They pledged to do this by achieving the 8 Millennium Development Goals, a roadmap to end extreme poverty by 2015.

It is now 2008, half-way through the journey, and a lot of work remains to be done. Each day 50,000 people die as a result of extreme poverty while the gap between the rich and the poor continues to increase in many places around the world. Nearly half the world's population remains in poverty, and 70% of those impoverished are women.

We have the power to change this.

We believe orkut is a powerful means of engaging people who care about fighting global poverty. Join our orkut community to find out how you can take action in your local area between October 17th and 19th to ensure that governments all over the world hear your demands to end poverty and inequality.



We've also created an interactive video on YouTube that you can check out. Inspired? If you write a blog, add this badge to your profile by copying and pasting this html:



<a href="http://www.orkut.com/endpoverty" ><img src="http://standagainstpoverty.org/files/badge_orkut_1_0.gif" alt="badge_orkut.gif" title="EndPoverty2015 on orkut" width="200" height="50" border="0" /></a>

Take a look at this video of some of the other people who have united around this cause. We hope you're inspired to get involved!

Posted by Miles Johnson, Product Marketing.

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Whose turn is it to reply? Check out conversation view for scraps

Do you have so many scraps from your friends that it's sometimes tough to know which scraps go with which conversation? To help you keep track of your scraps, orkut now lets you follow any of the scraps in your or your friends' scrapbooks in a conversation view. Just click on the "view this conversation" link below any scrap that has been replied to, and you will see the back and forth scraping that you and your friends have shared. All replies are connected to the original scrap, so you can view them in sequence.

Posted by by Ritika Sanghi and Nilton Volpato, Software Engineers

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Orkut on the iPhone— a socialite's dream come true

Are you an iPhone user? Do you wish you could stay in touch with your orkut friends while you're out and about? If so, you'll be happy to know that we've created a fully optimized version of orkut designed especially for use on the iPhone. Now you can stay on top of everything your friends are up to no matter where you are with the same quality of experience that you get from orkut on your computer.

Orkut on the iPhone gives you on-the-go access to:

• Your personalized home page with status and activity updates from your friends, along with all-important birthday reminders
• Your scrapbook where you can both read and write scraps
• Your friend list with one-click call access to anyone whose number is publicly displayed on orkut
  
• Fully functional search for anyone on orkut so that you can add new friends as you meet them
  
• Photos in a rich full-screen format

We've even snapped a photo of orkut on an iPhone for you to check out:




Just enter http://m.orkut.com in your iPhone browser and you can start enjoying the full orkut experience wherever you go.

Posted by Saurav Shah, Software Engineer

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A new look for orkut emails

We are constantly working to make your orkut experience better, and while this includes adding new, useful features on the site, like new search features and support for applications, it also includes improving your experience when you are not logged-in to orkut.com. Recently we released a better orkut experience for your smartphone, and now you'll see snazzier emails from orkut.

We decided it was time to change our emails to give them a look and feel more like orkut.com pages. We started by giving a new look to the emails that are associated with orkut's most popular features: scrap alerts, testimonials, friend requests, photo tagging, crushes and teaser alerts, as well as the emails for social events, which is a brand new feature.

Now, you will be able to feel like you're inside orkut even before you click the links sent in our e-mails.


Posted by Diogo Kropiwiec, Software Engineer

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orkut for S60, now with photo uploads

When we launched the mobile (xhtml) version of orkut back in April on m.orkut.com, we were overwhelmed by its adoption.

However, Google always tries to build our products for a diverse group of users. Many people access orkut from their smartphones, many of which can support more advanced functionality. So today we are launching a new mobile orkut experience that is optimized for Symbian Series 60 (3rd edition) phones. The new orkut works on many popular phones, including Nokia's Nseries (N95, N82, etc.) and Samsung's SGH models. We have added a bunch of new features including photo uploads, picture galleries, click-to-call, and quick friend searches. Best of all, everything is available without the need to download any special client. If you have a Symbian Series 60 3rd edition phone, just visit http://m.orkut.com in your mobile browser, and you are good to go!

So go ahead and upload all those wonderful pictures you took at the beach or at the city's latest dancing spot, and then start calling your orkut friends to plan the next gathering.

Posted by Ankit Gupta, Software Engineer

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Update on recent Orkut maintenance

Many of you may have noticed or heard from friends that orkut experienced some downtime. On Monday July 21st we discovered a bug that affected the profiles of a small set of orkut users. Starting at 14:30 PST, our engineering team disabled access to orkut.com while we worked on this issue. We brought orkut.com back up as soon as the bug was fixed, although we temporarily disabled a small number of profiles while we were restoring them. Less than .1% of all orkut users were impacted.

At no time was any user's login information at risk. Additionally, our team has fixed any impacted accounts automatically. As always, you should not click on any links that you receive in your messages folder, scrapbook, or email as we are already taking care of this bug.

At this time, we have notified all impacted users on their orkut homepage (see example below). If you have not received this notification from our team, then your account was not affected. Your safety and security on orkut is the number one priority for our team, so we wanted to be as transparent with you as possible. It's important that we continue to work with our users to provide a safe community for all to enjoy!

Posted by the Orkut Team

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New orkut search filters

You may have noticed that lately it's been easier to find what you're looking for when searching on orkut. For example, when you search for a person, we now show people in your network or country at the top of the results list , and we also suggest other terms if we think you've misspelled something. We're always looking to improve search on okrut, which is why we just launched some new search filters that we hope will further aid your searches. Here's how search filters work:

Say you are trying to find a person you met yesterday, but you can't remember his or her complete name. As always, you can type in what you remember of the person's name and hit search. After that, you can refine your search by applying the filters that appear on the right side of our search page. You might start by restricting the search to the languages you speak or the country you're in. To get even better results, try restricting by gender, age, relationship status, children or sexual preference. The more filters you combine, the more specific results will you get.

If you're searching for a community, you can now refine your results to communities that focus on only one specific category. This may help you find what you're looking for faster.

Posted by Diego Fernandes, Software Engineer

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App Highlight: Joga TV

Posted by Nike

[Since apps recently went live on orkut, we're excited to invite orkut developers to guest blog and tell us about their apps here.]

JogaTV by Nike is a great place to discover and share your favorite soccer videos on the web. Search the world of soccer videos by most viewed (day, week, month, or all-time), top rated, most discussed, most recent, teams, and players. Pick your favorite videos and then show your top 5 to the world on your orkut profile. Easily view and comment on your friends selections. Use JogaTV to showcase your love for the world’s most beautiful game.

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Making orkut more accessible

Posted by Rama Pokkunuri, Software Engineer

Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. We know that for visually impaired users, it can be difficult to navigate through orkut using a mouse to point and click on various links. In order to make orkut more accessible to all users, we recently added accesskeys for some commonly used links on orkut. With accesskeys, you no longer need to click your mouse to visit different pages on orkut. For example, if you are using IE, when you press "alt + s", the focus is moved to the "Scrapbook" link at the top of the page. Pressing "enter" will then take you to your scrapbook page.

Please note that different browsers use different control key combinations for accesskeys. On Netscape Navigator and Mozilla Firefox, "alt + shift + s" should take you directly to your scrapbook (you don't need to press "enter"). Similarly, if you hold down "alt+shift," simply press "h" for home, "p" for profile, "b" for friends, "c" for communities, "l" for logout. Almost all browsers support this feature, so please consult your browser manual to find the right key combination for your browser.

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What are your friends up to? Check out your homepage

Posted by Priya Mandawat, Software Engineer

Ever since we added "updates from my friends" to the orkut homepage, you've been requesting that we add more information to these updates so that you can stay informed on the latest developments from your friends. Over the past several months we've some added new types of updates and ways for you to control what kinds of updates you see. You can see everything from new photos and videos that your friends upload, to testimonials they receive, to changes they make on their profiles.

Now you can tell your friends what you are doing or how you're feeling right this minute by changing your status message on your profile and letting it show up in your friends' homepages.

If you prefer to keep your updates private, we give you the option of not showing your friends your updates. To prevent your updates from appearing on your friends' homepages, go to the Privacy Settings page and select 'hide updates' under the "my updates" section. If you don't want to see updates from your friends, select the "don't show updates from my friends" option under the "updates from my friends" section on your homepage. But if you ask me, with all the cool comments I get on my new photos and the scraps I receive in response to my other updates, I'm not going near these settings!

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orkuteers visit Google Bangalore

Posted by Robin Norvell, orkut Operations Team

A few months ago, we invited our Portuguese orkuteers to visit Google's Belo Horizonte office. But we weren't going to rest until we'd given our orkuteers in India the same chance to meet the orkut team and share their feedback about orkut in person. On June 6, three of our Indian superusers from throughout India met at the Google office in the Garden City (aka Bangalore), where they told us what they loved about orkut, shared suggestions for improvement, and sampled Google cuisine (and chai tea, of course). On hand to talk with them were a group of Googlers from the orkut team including product managers, engineers, operations staff, user experience researchers and HR reps.

Even at the end of a long day, there was still excitement in the air at the Bangalore office. The orkuteers gave first-hand feedback of some soon-to-be-launched features, and they also shared some common user pain points that the team can start working to remedy. The orkut team was happy to have Rakesh, Prashant and Gaurav share their perspectives, and the orkuteers were thrilled to meet the Google guides and engineers. Here's what they had to say:

"It was the most memorable day in my life because it helped me to meet the guides, orkuteers and engineers.”

"The invitation was really surprising for me…That day became the historic landmark for me. I will never ever forget that day that I spent there with Google. Google people are so careful about users and that day they cared a lot of me and my mates. I feel lucky that I'm a superuser. This was the first time for me that when anyone was asking question, I was listening with my full concentration.”

"The best thing about being an orkuteers is to receive the recognition from Google for doing something that I just love, helping people on orkut. The recognition I'm talking about is not just gifts, but to know that Google wants to hear from me about problems and suggestions for orkut and the orkut Help Group."

The orkuteers were happy to serve as reps for many orkut users, and would like to thank all members from INDIA community and OUG community for feedback to help prepare for the orkuteer Day in Bangalore.

We're glad they enjoyed the day, and many thanks to them again for their continued support in serving as wonderful guides in the orkut help group!

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Drag and drop to customize your profile page

Posted by Adam Winer, Software Engineer

Orkut profiles have become a lot more dynamic in the last year. Not only are your photos, videos, and testimonials showcased on your profile, but now users in many parts of the world can also add OpenSocial applications to their profiles. With so many new elements on the profile page, we've received feedback that you'd like to be able to arrange it as you wish.

So, to help you organize all this content and show your visitors the elements you most want them to see, we've rolled out new functionality. Here's a couple of things you can now do:

1. Reorganize your profile page with drag-and-drop: Simply click on any of the applications or showcases (photos, videos, and testimonials) on your profile page and drag them around until they are just as you'd like. The new layout of your profile page will automatically be saved, so your profile visitors will see everything just as you want it.
   
2. Put as many or as few applications on your profile as you want. Until now, you were able to display up to three applications on your profile, and some of you wanted to show more. Now, when you add an application, you can choose whether or not you want it on your profile. Just select or unselect the "Add to my profile" box above the big "Add Application" button. You can change this any time with the "tool" button in the upper-right corner of the application.

So go ahead and rearrange your profile and make it your own...and if that's not enough, why not add a theme as well!?

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Tag- that's me!

Posted by Sam Goto, Software Engineer

Photos have long been a popular feature of orkut, which is why we have engineers working full-time to make it easier for you to upload, share and browse photos on orkut. Recently, we increased our photo capacity so you can upload as many as you like, and we made it easier for you to organize your photos once you have them in your orkut albums. This week, we launched photo tagging so that you can label your orkut friends in your photos.

Here's how it works: when you're browsing your own or your friends' photo albums, simply click the "add tag" link below the bottom right corner of the photo. Then click your mouse over the friend you would like to label. A box will appear, prompting you to type your friend's name. As you type, the field will auto-complete so you can easily find the orkut friend you'd like to tag. When you browse tagged photos, hover over the name of a person to see which person he or she is in the photo. If you click, you'll be taken to his or her profile.

When one of your friends tags you in a photo, you'll receive an email. If you'd like to turn this notification off, you can go to notification settings. If a friend tags you in a photo and it's not you (or just a bad photo of you!), you can click on the trash can next to your name and delete the tag for good. The photo owner also has permission to delete any tags on his or her photos. If you'd rather not let your friends tag your photos, or be tagged in any photos, you can disable the feature completely in your privacy settings. Many people have already begun tagging their photos. Happy tagging!

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Sharing YouTube videos on orkut made simple

Narayan Kamath, Software Engineer

Have you ever been watching a funny video on YouTube and decided halfway through that you must share it with your orkut friends? Previously, you had to go to your orkut "favorite videos" page and copy-and-paste the video URL to post these clips. Now you can share videos on orkut directly from YouTube! Click on the orkut logo under the video you are watching on YouTube, and you'll be taken directly to your "favorite videos" page on orkut. The URL of the video you're watching will already be loaded, so all you need to do is hit "add video" to post. Now that it's easier than ever, go ahead and share videos with your friends on orkut.

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Private communities for your work or school

Posted by Kuldeep Gharat, Software Engineer

Communities on orkut come in all shapes and sizes. Large, open communities are great for meeting new people and getting news on topics you care about, while smaller ones help you keep in touch with friends and people from your school or work. When we launched private communities several months ago , we let community owners decide who could access content in their communities -- all orkut users or just members of those specific communities. Recently, we added additional functionality to let you create communities that are only open to people who share your email domain. For example, I have an @google.com email address for work, so I could create a community that is only accessible to those who also have @google.com email addresses.

How does it work? First, enter the email address for the domain you share with your classmates or colleagues into the contacts tab of your profile. When creating a new community, simply choose the "validated - email validation required" option, then select the domain from the drop down box. Anyone who wants to join the community will first be required to validate his or her email address from that domain before being allowed to join.

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A faster, lighter version of orkut

Posted by Nishant Redkar, Software Engineer

A few weeks ago we launched a low bandwidth version of orkut that makes your experience on orkut faster. This is especially helpful if you are using a 56.6 or 64 kps modem, or if you are on a DSL connection with many users. How does it work? The low bandwidth version of orkut avoids downloading images unless you really want them, which lets you navigate through the site more quickly.

When orkut pages seem to be taking a long time to load, you'll receive a prompt that lets you switch to the low bandwidth version. Similarly, orkut also prompts you to switch back to the regular version if the pages start downloading quickly again. If it seems like your connection is slow and you don't see a message, you can manually switch to the low bandwidth version by going to the general settings tab.

Although some things are displayed differently in the low bandwidth version compared to the regular version (for example, your friends and communities will appear as simple lists, rather than photos), people who have tried the low bandwidth version have told us that they are sticking with it: it's saving them money (if they pay by amount of data downloaded) and is making it more efficient and fun to browse the site. So give the new version a spin -- it may save you time or money or both!

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If you're in India and feel like a change of scene...

Posted by Nishant Redkar, Navneet Nair and Narayan Kamath

Since orkut first launched back in 2004, the site has had a soothing, blue color scheme that we've all come to know and love. When we redesigned the interface last August, we switched up some elements but kept the blue theme. While some of you love it, we've also heard that others would like more freedom to customize your orkut experiences, just as you customize your profiles. Now you can make your orkut profile reflect your mood for the day or change the theme to match the current season.

We recently began rolling out 12 themes to a percentage of our Indian users, and these themes should be available to all Indian users by the end of this week. We're currently testing this new feature, and if we hear that users like it, we plan to roll it out for everyone on orkut and continue offering more new themes.

How do you switch your theme? Click on the "change theme" link in the top navigation bar or go to the"themes" tab in the edit profile page. You'll then see our gallery page, where you can check out all the themes that are currently available. Alternatively, if you visit a friend's profile page and he has a theme you like, click on "get this theme." When you select a theme, all your orkut pages will have this theme: your profile, scrapbook, photos, videos, etc. When other users visit your profile or other pages, they will see your selected theme.

There is also an option to disable all themes in case you'd rather navigate orkut all in blue. There are times when you access orkut from slow speed connections, and images on the site may take longer than usual to download. On those days, it may help to disable themes completely so that your friends' profiles load more quickly.

So go ahead, be colorful! Express yourself. Let us know what you think of the themes at our orkut help group.

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App highlight: BuboMe

Posted by Connie Zhou, BuboMe.com

[Since apps recently went live on orkut, we're excited to invite orkut developers to guest blog and tell us about their apps here.]

BuboMe is a photo application that lets you pimp your photos or your orkut friends' photos by adding themes and speech bubbles.

Create a Bubo

With a single click, your orkut profile photo is uploaded to the app and you are ready to pimp it by selecting a theme. There are nine categories with hundreds of themes to choose from. You can choose to be a superhero, a celebrity or even a cartoon character.

Drag thought or speech bubbles into your photo, type in the content of the bubble and then save it as a new bubo. When you are done, your new photos are displayed on your orkut profile as a slideshow.

The BuboMe photo app is currently available in 5 languages: English, Portuguese, Spanish, Vietnamese and Chinese. If you have friends who are not on orkut, they can still create a bubo by going to BuboMe.com.

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What's going on next to our blog

Posted by Natalie Schwartz, orkut team

We noticed the other day, after we added yet another link to the right-hand nav of our blog, that there is quite a lot going on over there. We thought it might be helpful to provide a short description for each item, so here is a top-to-bottom list of the tools and links we have listed.

• Search box: search our blog for quick access to past posts
• "Join orkut" button: chances are good that you're already a member, but just in case ;)
• Site feed: learn how to read our blog's content through other feed reading services, such as netvibes, pageflakes, or iGoogle
• "+ Google" button: quickly add our blog to your iGoogle homepage or Google Reader account
• Archives: browse past posts by month
• Email us your thoughts: pretty self explanatory, but please keep sending your feedback!
• Orkut birthday gadget: add a gadget to your iGoogle homepage so you can keep track of your friends' birthdays without keeping orkut open all day long
• Orkut demographics: we added this link in response to popular demand
  
• Share your orkut stories: we have featured several of these on our blog and on the orkut site, so keep them coming
• We've also provided links to a number of other products that are popular among orkut users, as well as links to dozens of other Google blogs

We hope this helps you take full advantage of the tools and links that accompany our posts.

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Happy Mother's Day!

Posted by the orkut team













To honor the thousands of mothers and mothers-to-be that we have on orkut, we've put this special doodle on the login page today. We expect that you've already called home, seen your mom, or at least sent her a scrap, and if you haven't already, get to it! We know you care, because our largest community on orkut is for mom lovers!

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What's new with you?

Posted by Luiz Genoves, Software Engineer

Are you headed off on a big trip? Want to share your excitement about a favorite sports team's recent championship? Inviting your friends to a party you're having tonight? Recently we launched status messages on orkut profiles that let you do just that.


It is simple, quick and easy: go to your profile, type whatever you want to appear as your status in the box right below your name, and it is done! Now whoever views your profile can view your latest news.

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What do think of my photo? Make a comment!

Posted by Natalie Schwartz, orkut Team

Since photo sharing is one of the most popular ways to use orkut, we are constantly working to add more functionality to our photo albums. Last week we launched a feature that lets you rearrange your photos within an album, and we announced that you can upload up to 10,000 pictures to orkut (have you taken full advantage yet?). Today, we're happy to share that you can now comment on your friends' photos. Captions have always been a fun way to tell your friends what's going on in your pictures, but sometimes when you're looking at others' photos, you want to respond to the captions right there rather than sending a scrap or message. To post a comment, simply type your response in the comments section below the photo and hit "post comment." Your comment will show up below your friend's photo. If you decide afterwards that you'd like to take down your comment, you (or the photo owner) can always remove it.

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App Highlight: iLike

Posted by Hadi Partovi, iLike


[Since apps recently went live on orkut, we're excited to invite orkut developers to guest blog and tell us about their apps here.]

iLike is an app that lets you share lists of your favorite videos, artists and music with your friends. One of iLike's unique features is that it lets you add songs and scraps.

To add song snippets as scraps, you'll first need to search the iLike library to find a favorite song.

To add song snippets as scraps, you'll first need to search the iLike library to find a favorite song. If you click "Send as a scrap," you will receive a simple line of code that you can copy and paste into any friend's scrapbook:

The iLike Challenge- how well do you know your music?
With the music challenge, you can test your musical knowledge and compare your score to your friends' scores. The app will play a short snippet of a song and prompt you to identify the artist. Challenge your friends and show your score on your profile.

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orkut Super Users visit Google Office

Posted by the orkut team

On Apr 18, the Google office in Belo Horizonte hosted a special event for some VIP guests: the orkut super users from the Portuguese Help Group. By bringing together these orkut experts and enthusiasts, we got some critical feedback about orkut and learned more about how they sustain our help community. Here's what they thought about it:

"The invite was a surprise, a dream come true, which just shows how Google cares for its users and how it's always exceeding our expectations. The atmosphere in the office is so exciting that you don't want to find your way out. As if we were orkut ambassadors, we felt our voice was heard when brainstorming about suggestions and usability issues. We hope we have done a good job at representing millions of users who have orkut as their favorite website." Alexandre Luis Vignado

"This day became a historical landmark for me. I enjoyed every single moment, from printing my badge at the front desk to toasting with Googlers during TGIF. I had to pinch myself to believe that I was visiting the company responsible for the most successful social networking website in Brazil: orkut! The environment is so relaxing that you can easily forget there's hard work being done in each of those cubes. But Google doesn't forget it and does the best to reward its employees with massage, hammocks, and game rooms. And the treats in the micro kitchen, of course! Visiting a Google office is like visiting a Google product: fun and quality everywhere! As you can see from my impressions, I don't feel I myself worked hard on that day, event though I participated in brainstorming sessions for 7 hours. Those were magic hours when we felt part of the orkut team and did our best to speak for all those users we interact with in the Help Group. orkut just became more admirable and promising for me." Cesar JB

"The invite was a surprise that only the visit itself could beat. While taking a tour at the office, we met some engineers who were having a meeting around a team member's birthday cake, which they kindly shared cake with us. Nice start... Even after working hard at focus sessions for hours, we didn't want to leave, which was perfectly fine for those Googlers who stayed with us celebrating TGIF and playing foosball. Cool, sociable, and smart people work there – and we attest, they're NORMAL people. :-) It was also great to meet in person my partners in the Help Group, Cesar and Alexandre. This bonding time will just improve our teamwork spirit." Luiz Fernando

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