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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