Happy New Year!

Another year has gone by, and it's certainly been an exciting one for the orkut team. In the past 12 months, we're proud to have:

• launched inline photo comments
• redesigned our help forum
• given you better community controls
• built an application for your mobile phones
• offered face detection for your orkut photos
• integrated chat to orkut
• introduced orkut promote
• created a free, integrated video chat tool
• and, who could forget, launched an entirely redesigned version of orkut, with many more announcements since ;-)

Through it all, our primary guide has always been your feedback, and we're happy to hear that so many of you have enjoyed what's come so far.

We have a lot of exciting updates planned for 2010, but we'd also like to hear about things that you'd like to see. So, let us know: what's your biggest wish for orkut in 2010? Please be sure to get in touch and tell us what's on your mind.

As you head out to celebrate the new year with your friends and family, don't forget to check out the orkut doodle that we've created in honor of the date:

Oh, and be sure to post the pictures from all your New Year's antics to orkut so that your friends can see what you've been up to.

Happy New Year from the whole orkut team!

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Happy Holidays!

Decorate your tree, hang your stockings and candy canes, prepare your gifts and get ready for Santa Claus to arrive. Christmas time is here and people in countries all over the world are getting into the holiday spirit.

For those who celebrate, it's a great time to gather your family, friends and loved ones and throw a holiday party with tons of food, gifts, and cheer.

There's plenty to do on orkut as well. You can send a holiday-themed scrap to your friends using the Fun Scraps Open Social application or play one of the many games available like Sugar Free Super Hero or 12 days of Christmas.

Whether you're celebrating or not, we hope you have a wonderful day. Happy holidays to you and yours!

Posted by Ariel, orkut operations team

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Found something interesting on the internet? Share it on orkut!

We're happy to announce the launch of a great new way for you to share with your friends interesting content that you read on the web -- the 'orkut share' bookmarklet for internet browsers.

To quickly install this bookmarklet in any browser, just visit the 'orkut share' installation page. In a few seconds you'll be all set.

Then, when you find something cool on the internet, just click the bookmarklet and share a snippet and a link to the webpage with your friends on orkut. You'll also have an option to create a promotion (using 'orkut promote') to better spread the word about that content.

Your friends will see a link to the page you shared and your comments about it in their 'friends updates' section. They'll also be able to comment on it:

Web publishers and bloggers can also post 'orkut share' buttons (like the one at the end of this post) on their pages to enable their visitors to share content they find interesting on the site with their friends on orkut. If you run a blog or a website, try our code generator or visit the API documentation for more details.

So spread the word and have fun sharing!

Posted by Rajiv Mathews and Jayesh Sharma, software engineers

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How to video chat in orkut

We recently announced the launch of orkut video chat, an easy way for you and your friends to keep in touch, virtually face-to-face, directly from your orkut pages.

To enjoy this feature, all you need is a webcam and a small plugin -- free at www.google.com/chat/video.

Take a look at this video to see how it works:

Remember that to be able to chat or video chat, first you have to validate your e-mail address on orkut.

To learn more, visit this help center page. Also, don't forget to give us your feedback through the orkut help forum. Have fun video chatting with your friends!

Posted by Ariel, orkut operations team

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A holiday treat from orkut -- now everyone is invited!

It's been six weeks since we announced the new version of orkut. During this time we've received great feedback regarding the faster speed, improved organization and easier ways to interact with your friends on orkut. We also recently announced the launch of 40 different colors for your profile, the 'orkut share' bookmarklet and a brand new photo experience.

Overall, it's very exciting to discover how much you're enjoying the new orkut. Driven by this enthusiasm, the orkut team decided to give you an early present this holiday season: now everyone can join the new orkut, no invites needed.

If you're not using the new orkut yet, all you have to do is click the special button at the top of your orkut page. And if you can't yet see the button in your page, don't worry, you'll be able to see it soon; it may take a few days to get to everyone.

Remember that all data you had in the previous version is also supported by the new orkut -- so don't worry, everything will be there.

For those of you who haven't had a chance to check out the new orkut, we hope you enjoy it. Remember to stay tuned, there are more surprises to come in early 2010!

Posted by Victor Ribeiro, orkut product management director

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Faster, more fun photo sharing on orkut

You've told us that you really liked the fast photo uploading feature on the new orkut, and we're thrilled! So, recently we turned our focus to revamping your photo viewing experience.

In-line photo browsing

When you receive a photo upload update from a friend in your activity stream, now all you have to do to see the full-sized photo is click on the thumbnail in your update. You can also comment on the photo and see comments by others in your activity stream. This means you can continue checking out other updates without opening a new page.

Using the left and right arrow buttons at the bottom of the photo, you can browse all the photos shared with you. You can also pick a photo you want to see up close by clicking on the 'photo film strip' up top.

Convenient face detection

Clicking the "people in this photo" link at the bottom left of a photo highlights all of the faces that orkut has automatically detected with rectangles. Just click on a rectangle to tag a face by typing a name in the pop-up box. You can also hide the rectangles with a single click.

Photo slideshows
Notice the "slideshow" icon at the bottom right of the full view of the photo? Click on it and sit back for a full-screen, automated slideshow of the photo album. You can stop the show at any time or hover over the thumbnail strip at the bottom of the slideshow to enlarge a particular image. You can also jump ahead to an interesting photo, or go back to one you want to view again. Try playing around with some of the keyboard controls (like Home, End, left and right arrows, Spacebar, and Escape), to see what happens.

Note: we're still working on a version of this feature for Internet Explorer, so if you'd like to check it out now, just sign in to orkut using either Google Chrome or Firefox.

You can enjoy many of these same features not just in the "friends updates" section on your orkut homepage but also from the "profile" and "photos" pages.

We hope you enjoy the new photo viewing, commenting and tagging experience -- and please keep telling us what you think at the orkut help forum or official community.

Posted by Nayyar Azam, software engineer

UPDATE: The photo slideshows feature is also available for IE users as well!

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Have you gotten invites to the new orkut?

While you're staying busy on orkut, we wanted to give you an update on how to smoothly get into the new orkut. If you're not yet using the new orkut, the best thing to do is ask a friend who's already using it to share an invite. If you visit your friend's profile page and see this icon next to their name, they probably have an invitation to share -- so be bold, and ask for one!

Another way to get invites is to join the official community. Remember that these are the only two ways of getting invites currently, so beware of fake links, spreadsheets, scripts ("copy and paste a code to your browser") and other phishing activities.

And if you see a special button on the top of your orkut homepage, that means you've already been invited to the new orkut. Just click this button to get started:

Everyone who's on the new orkut will eventually receive invitations to share with friends. When you receive yours, you'll see a counter on your homepage, below the friends box, indicating how many invitations you have to share. To invite friends, simply click "invite your friends" and choose who you want to invite. Only friends who aren't yet using the new orkut will appear on the list. As you invite friends, your counter will reflect your remaining number of invitations.

We enjoy reading your comments and reactions to the new orkut. So far, we've heard that you "liked the ability to comment on... updates," loved "the fast photo uploads" and the "faster interface."  But we're also interested in the stuff you're not so excited about, or want to see that hasn't shown up yet. Our users are our inspiration, so keep your comments coming. Make sure you tell us what's on your mind through the orkut Help Forum or the official community polls.

As we close, here's a video we hope you'll enjoy about the new orkut:

Posted by Poppy, orkut operations team

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Break out the turkey and stuffing— it's time for Thanksgiving!

Remember when we mentioned that the orkut team would celebrate festive dates around the world? Well, it's time for Thanksgiving!

Lots of food, football games, parades and plenty of time to spend with the people you cherish most in your life. These things are all inescapable parts of Thanksgiving day. But who would want to escape from them anyway?

Thanksgiving is one of the most traditional holidays in the United States, having taken place since 1621. Celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November each year, this holiday is about expressing gratitude for all of the positive things in your life.

Over time, Thanksgiving has become increasingly important in countries outside of the US. If you'd like to participate in the fun, you can use the Superscrap Open Social application to send messages to your friends and loved ones on orkut.

If you haven't logged into orkut yet today, make sure you do so that you can check out our special Thanksgiving doodle in action:

And, oh, be sure to prepare your stomach— Thanksgiving is filled with plenty of food and culinary treats. So much so that in the US, it's known as Turkey Day!

Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family.

Posted by Ariel, orkut operations team

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Color me orkut

When we launched the new orkut, we thought you'd enjoy changing your profile color with a single click. It was great to discover how much you liked this new feature!

In fact, you seem to have liked it so much that we decided five colors aren't nearly enough. So we've added a range of new colors for your palette:

 

And since not all colors play nicely with our standard blue background, the orkut background color now also changes to match the new hue you choose:

Have fun coloring with orkut! And remember to keep telling us what you think.

Posted by Eduardo Thuler, orkut product manager

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More about the new orkut

The new orkut was launched and it seems like people are really enjoying it! We're handing out more invitations so you can enjoy what's new in this version, but in the meantime we also created a video summing up the key changes:

If you can't access the new orkut yet, don't worry - there are still different ways to get an invitation. Good luck!

Posted by Rodrigo Paiva, orkut operations team

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Introducing the new version of orkut: fun new features, faster browsing, the same great friends

Today is a very special day for the orkut team (and hopefully for you as well). After months of hard work, we are thrilled to announce the launch of a brand spanking new version of orkut. We've been listening carefully to all of the feedback that you've so diligently left us and have rebuilt the site from the bottom up using the Google Web Toolkit (GWT). Doing so has allowed us to create a faster, richer and more intuitive experience for you and continue to increase our pace of innovation. With the new version of orkut you'll find:

• Fewer pages, faster browsing: We've concentrated orkut's principal actions onto your homepage, making it a one-stop-shop for nearly everything that you'd like to do. Now you can chat, watch videos, and browse and search within your full friends and communities lists without ever having to open a new page. See a photo, video, or status message in your activity stream that you'd like to comment on? Just start typing away. After all, fewer pages and a GWT interface mean less time waiting for things to load and more time doing what really matters– hanging out with your friends!

• A clean, simple interface: We've reorganized the most important activites on orkut so that they are easy to find and even easier to use. Look out for larger pictures, easier to access notifications, targeted friend suggestions, and key updates closer to the top of your homepage. Now you can even use your friends' profile pages to keep up with their most recent activities and leave them scraps.
  

• Greater personalization: Make your orkut profile and homepage truly your own by choosing the color that best fits your style. Have a personality that's too unique to be captured by words? We've also made it possible for you to customize your "about me" section, adding video, OpenSocial applications and much more to your array of options.
  

• And much, much more: This is just a taste of all the new things you'll find on orkut. Learn more about all of the different features you'll find on the new interface by visiting this page on the orkut Help Center.
  

Excited about the new version of the site? Then you'll also be excited to know that we're returning to orkut's roots and granting access to it via invitations. Starting today, there are two ways to get invites:

1. Join Poppy and Shashi on the official community (www.orkut.co.in/neworkut) for insights into the new version of orkut and participate in one of the many activities that will be taking place there. Be sure to check back often as the owners will be regularly announcing new ways to get access.
2. Find a friend who's already using the new version of orkut and ask for an invite. You can see who's already gotten access via your activity stream or by this icon that will appear on your friends' profile pages, next to their names.

We'd like to think of this as the beginning of a new evolution for orkut, so please stay posted for even more improvements coming in the near future. If you'd like to leave us a comment just visit the orkut Help Forum.

Hope to see you on the new version of orkut soon!

Posted by the whole orkut team

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Update your browser and stay safe

The orkut team is constantly working to keep orkut a fun and safe place for everyone. We've previously posted some tips on staying secure on orkut — if you haven't seen them yet, take a look! — but I want to share one more security tip with you: this one is about browsers. 

Your Internet browser is one of the most important software programs on your computer because every website you visit runs through it. Right now you're using a browser to read this blog post, just as you use it to access orkut or any other site on the Internet. 

Orkut itself is fully supported by the latest versions of three major browsers: Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer. For the best experience, you should always access orkut via one of these browsers.

Although most people on orkut do use one of those browsers, not everyone remembers to frequently update their browser versions. This means that many people may be using an older version of Firefox or Internet Explorer. Old browsers are not only slower and sometimes prone to crashing, but they're also unsafe because they lack the latest security features and bug fixes that are included in newer updates. 

So, if you want to stay safe, remember to update your browser to the latest version. It's free, and it only takes a few minutes! The good news is that if you use Google Chrome, you're already up-to-date — Google Chrome automatically installs the newest version when it becomes available. 

To try Google's web browser, click to download Google Chrome. You can also download the latest version of Mozilla Firefox or Internet Explorer 8 optimized for Google.

Browse safely, folks!

Posted by Ariel, orkut operations team

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Keep your finger on the pulse of orkut with www.orkutheroes.com

With it's tens of millions of active users and innumerable communities and Open Social applications, it can sometimes be tough to stay on top of everything that's happening on orkut. While we do our best to keep you posted via the official orkut blog, there are lots of other great resources out there dedicated to exactly that purpose. Today we'd like to highlight orkutheroes.com, a site focused on honoring those users who are helping to bring people together on orkut by creating interesting, creative communities and providing useful information to others. Founded and maintained by Zaheer Abbas (known as Zazo), and Tara, orkutheroes.com offers a tremendous amount of content, including interviews, tips and updates about what's new, reviews of blogs maintained by orkut users, and orkut related graphics and posters.

In just a few minutes of browsing the site I've found everything from an article on a Reiki Grand Master who uses her 15 orkut communities to attempt to heal and educate people about her craft to a peek into the lives of four people who use orkut to share memory exercises and math tricks.

If you're ever looking for a quick diversion, take a few moments to see what quirky, surprising and informative new tidbits the orkutheroes team has posted (like this interview of Sameep Kulkarni, a budding 'software sitarist').

Know of another great resource for people looking to learn more about orkut? Stop by the orkut Help Forum and let us know– you might see it appear on the official orkut blog!

Posted by Swati Rai, operations team

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Break out the fireworks and sweets: Diwali 2009 has arrived!

It's time to turn on the lights, paint the house with fresh colors, wear new clothes and gather with family and friends to share in the festive cheer. Diwali is one of the largest holidays in India and has a simple and very important meaning: celebrate the victory of good over evil, light over darkness and knowledge over ignorance. 

The Diwali fever is upon us, and orkut certainly hasn't been left out of the fun. Communities are doing everything from pushing for a 'pollution free Diwali' to voting on their favorite websites for sending Diwali greetings. Check out the I love Diwali community's active polls on people's favorite things about the holiday (right now, 'crackers' is topping the list with 27% of votes, but it's closely followed by 'holidays', 'new clothes', and 'sweets'). 

A number of Open Social applications have also popped up to celebrate, like the Diwali Wish app. With it, you can create a wishlist of things you'd like this Diwali and see what your friends are hoping for as well. If you want to send special Diwali greeting cards or scraps, you can also try applications like Kaamana- Greetings for U and Fun Scraps.

If you haven't seen it already, take a look at the special Diwali logo we designed to brighten the festive season... Happy Diwali :-) 

Posted by Shaon Roy Chowdhury, orkut operations team 

UPDATE: Beginning with this year's Diwali celebration, the orkut team will be doing special doodles and posts to commemorate festive dates around the world. Keep your eyes peeled for the next one!

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Calling all artists, designers, writers...

What happens when one man uses his favorite social networking site to share his dreams, inspirations, and ideas? In the case of Pawandheer, it snowballs into a community of over 3000 members that hosts more than 40,000 photos and boasts hundreds of topics related to subjects as varied as yoga, blood donation, and great literary works.

Pawandheer, a 21 year-old media student in Andhra Pradesh, formed the community Orkut Photo Gallery MPG to share poetry, short stories, quotes and photographs with like-minded others. Through the active participation of its members, MPG has blossomed into a platform to discuss an incredibly diverse array of topics. Thanks to the hard work of its group of 30 odd moderators known as Team MPG, the community has turned into a true online resource. Take a look at this discussion on numerology and you'll find more than 700 posts focused solely on defining each of the numbers and the characteristics of people associated with them. Now you know where to go to read more about yourself or your partner!

Though most of MPG's members and moderators have never actually met in person, the goodwill and respect they have for one another allows the community to flourish. What’s next for this enthusiastic bunch? Regional meetings to plan the launch of a youth magazine later this year.

The orkut team is thrilled that orkut has helped to connect such an interesting and engaged group of people. Have a similar story that you'd like to share? Visit the orkut Help Forum and let us know. We'd love to feature you on the official orkut blog.

Posted by Robin Schriebman and David Wu, software engineers

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Talk face-to-face with your friends with video chat in orkut

Orkut is all about bringing real friends together no matter where they may be. Now that we've made it possible for all of you to chat with your friends inside orkut, we figured it was time to make the chat experience even richer. That's why we're so pleased to announce the launch of orkut video chat– a great new way for you and your friends to keep in touch face-to-face directly from your orkut homepage.

Have a webcam connected to your computer? Just take a few seconds to download a small plugin, install it, and you'll be all set to go.

Once you're signed in to orkut, you can tell which of your friends are also ready to video chat by the small green camera icons next to their names in your chat list.

When you find a friend you want to chat with, open a chat window and click on the "Start video chat" link in the "Actions" menu. If you want to get a better view of your friend, you can pop out your chat window and increase the size all the way up to full-screen.

Video chat makes it easy to keep in touch with everyone you know by letting you chat with friends signed in via Gmail and iGoogle, even if they're not orkut users. We hope this new feature helps you stay connected to the people you care about and makes orkut an even more fun place to hang out. If you've got feedback about video chat you'd like to share, we'd like to hear it– so just head to the orkut help forum and let us know!

Posted by Robin Schriebman and David Wu, software engineers

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Finding friends made easy with orkut friend suggestions

If you're as much of an orkut addict as I am, you probably spend a decent amount of time visiting friends' profiles and seeing what they're up to. While browsing, I'm often surprised to find people that I know (friends of friends), who I didn't even realize had orkut profiles. While I often use the search feature to find specific friends I want to add, up until now, there hasn't been an easy way to find those friends of mine I wouldn't think to search for.

We on the orkut team figured we could make things easier on everyone by offering suggestions of people you might want to be friends with on your orkut home page. With the new orkut friend suggestions feature, we use an algorithm to automatically create a list of people on orkut who you might know, and display it right below your birthday reminders.

Not only does the friend suggestions feature make it easy to find new friends, it also lets you add them to your friends list and send them a short message without ever leaving your home page. Just click the "add as friend" link below your friend's photo, customize the message you want to send (or use the predefined message we've created for you), and click "send invite."

We originally developed this feature to help people who were new to orkut to quickly and easily find all of their friends who had already joined, but soon realized that it could be just as useful to any orkut user, regardless of how many friends they have. As such, we've decided to make it available to all of you. We're currently in the process of rolling it out, so if you haven't seen it yet, don't worry, we'll be sure to get to you soon.

Have feedback about orkut friend suggestions? Visit the orkut Help Forum and let us know.

Hope this new feature helps you make even more orkut friends!

Posted by Eduardo Tejada, software engineer

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Everyone can chat now!

We almost can't believe it ourselves, but we've finished enabling orkut chat for everyone!

Those of you who have been patiently waiting will be pleased to know that we've made orkut chat even more dynamic by adding these new features:

• Chat pop out: allows you to view individual chats in separate windows

• Group chat: lets you chat with multiple friends at the same time

• Chat list: makes it easy to see which of your friends are online, whether they're logged in via orkut, Gmail, iGoogle, or Google Talk

Want to learn more? Check out this short instructional video:



Don't have access to chat from your orkut profile yet? Take a few seconds and verify your email address with us and you'll be all set.

By the way, we've still got a couple of cards up our sleeves. Do expect to see more exciting features coming to chat soon.

Posted by Rodrigo Almeida, software engineer

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orkut 'promote': a free tool to help you spread the news to all your orkut friends

Almost everyday there's something that I'd like to spread to all of my orkut friends, whether that be a hilarious YouTube video, a new orkut community I just discovered or a quote that happens to fit my mood. That's why I'm so happy to announce the release of a new orkut feature: 'promote'.

orkut promote is a free tool that allows you to create announcements and automatically send them to all of your orkut friends with a single click. Promote makes it easy to show text, your original photos from your orkut photo albums and your original YouTube videos to your orkut friends– just give your promotion a catchy title and a short description and you'll be all set to go.

With this new promote tool, you get:

• the ability to easily create promotions using text, photos from your orkut albums, and your original YouTube videos
• built-in 'spread' and 'trash' features that let you pass on the promotions you like to all of your friends and delete the ones you don't so that they never show up for you again
• the 'my promotions' tool that shows you how many users have viewed, clicked on, or deleted your promotions, as well as how far they've spread
• the ability to stop or delete a promotion that you've created at any time

We've done our best to make promotions not just easy to use, but also easy to find. That's why we've placed them in the upper right corner of your friends' home and profile pages, in the same place where advertisements typically appear.

Excited as we are? Check out this short instructional video to learn more:



If you haven't seen 'promote' yet, it's important to understand that we're currently in the process of rolling it out to all of our users around the world. If you're living in India, we're looking forward to having promote ready for you in the coming months. When it appears, head to the orkut Help Center and let us know what you think.

Hope you like the new feature and looking forward to seeing your promotions spreading through orkut soon!

Posted by the orkut promote team.

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Happy 62nd, India!

As many of you know, today marks the 62nd anniversary of Indian independence, and in honor of the special occasion, we've created a special commemorative doodle that shows up when you log in.

Check it out below:

Excited about the holiday? Share your thoughts at one of the many Independence Day related communities.

Here's to hoping everyone's day is safe, happy, and very independent. ;-)

Posted by Miles Johnson, Marketing Manager.

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Face detection in orkut photo albums– photo tagging just got easier

Photo albums are one of the most popular features on orkut and a personal favorite of mine. For me, tagging photos have been an especially good way of keeping a record of all the fun times that I've shared with friends. Yet as much as I love having my photo albums labeled, big albums (especially those with lots of group shots), can take a long time to tag.

To speed up the tagging process, we're launching a face detection feature on all new photos uploaded to orkut. With it, orkut is now able to automatically detect when faces appear in photos (by recognizing features like eyes, noses, mouths, etc.), but without actually identifying specific individuals. The algorithm is not perfect, however, so things like eyeglasses, difficult lighting, poses, etc. may 'fool' our system from time to time. If that ever happens, rest assured that you can always tag photos as you normally would, and of course change or remove any tags that you're unhappy with.



We've made the tagging process even easier by adding an auto-fill feature that suggests names from your friends list for the people that you tag. Just start typing in your friend's name, and auto-fill will take care of the rest.



Of course, all of the privacy features that you currently have with photos on orkut will remain in place and only your friends will be able to tag you in their photos. You'll also have the additional option of removing all tags if you would prefer not to be tagged in this manner or not to take advantage of orkut's face detection. We'll be rolling face detection out to everyone over the next few days, so if you're ready to see how it works, just try uploading a new photo to orkut.

Posted by Anand Pillai, Software Engineer.

UPDATE: We love to hear your feedback, so if you'd like to send us a quick note about face detection, just visit the orkut help forum.

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Bring your orkut friendships with you as you travel the web with Google Friend Connect

Today marks the international launch of Google Friend Connect, making the product available in 47 new languages, including Portuguese, Hindi, and Spanish. Friend Connect provides a way for website owners to easily add social features to their sites, creating a unified online social experience across diverse sites from around the web.

What's more, Friend Connect is integrated with orkut, allowing you to bring your orkut friendships with you to a host of participating sites. Login to Friend Connect using your orkut credentials, link in your orkut account, and you'll be saved the trouble of having to upload a new photo, create a new profile or re-establish all of the orkut friendships you've already made.



For those of you who have your own websites, Friend Connect makes it possible for anyone to join your site and discover other members. Instead of requiring complex and/or time intensive programming, Friend Connect also offers a catalog of social gadgets that you can add to your site by simply copying and pasting a few snippets of code. Visit the gadget gallery to find gadgets available in your language.





The orkut team was so pleased to hear about Friend Connect's international launch that we decided to add Friend Connect to the official orkut blogs. If you haven't noticed already, you can now follow the blog, and see which of your orkut friends are avid blog readers as well.

If you're a site owner and are interested in adding Friend Connect to your site, head to google.com/friendconnect. If you're a regular Friend Connect user, just login using your orkut account information and start taking your orkut network with you around the web!

Posted by Miles Johnson, Marketing Manager

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Updates to OpenSocial apps on orkut

By now, some of you have probably noticed that we've made some changes to OpenSocial apps on orkut. To make sure everyone knows what's going on, we thought we'd quickly run through what's new in this post.

• OpenSocial apps categories: To make it easier to find the perfect Open Social application to fit your needs, we've organized the apps into categories. Now, whether you're interested in an app related to finance or just a simple game, you can quickly and easily find what you're looking for. You can now see the most popular and most recently added OpenSocial apps, as well as the apps your friends are using, broken down by category.

• OpenSocial apps stats: A great way to find new OpenSocial apps to try is by looking at how many people use particular apps and how often. We've recently made this comparison much easier by adding stats on the number of users each app has, as well as its weekly usage directly to the 'application info' page.

• New OpenSocial apps profile view: In order to help make the OpenSocial apps experience faster and more secure, we've changed how apps appear on your profile pages. All OpenSocial apps now display a combination of html and images and/or animated gifs on profile pages rather than the moving flash images some used to show. But don't worry, when you click on the app, you'll still have all the same functionality that you've always had. While this change might take some getting used to, we hope you'll appreciate how much faster and safer it makes orkut.

As always, we love to hear your feedback, so be sure to share your opinion in the orkut Help Group and let us know how we can make apps even more useful and fun.

Posted by Rahul Kulkarni, Product Manager

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Advertising on orkut

One of the great things about social networks is their ability to supply you with information that's relevant to you: whether that be updates from friends, an invite to a fun party, or photos of a new baby in the family. On the orkut team, we believe that advertisements should be no different. That's why we've done our best to match you with the ads that we think you'll be most interested in.

Ever wonder why you see ads related to cricket while your techie older sister tends to see more ads for laptop computers? One of the important ways that the orkut ads platform is able to match you with relevant ads is by looking broadly at the types of communities you've chosen to join. So if you're a member of tons of sports communities while your sister prefers to join ones related to gaming, the two of you will probably see some different ads. Of course, respecting your personal information is very important to us, which is why we've created a clear privacy policy letting you know exactly how it's used.

We also believe that even the most well-targeted ads have their time and place. This is why not all of you see ads on orkut and why those of you who do only see them in a fixed and limited space on each page where they appear.

Recently we decided to move the location of ads on your homepages to a more prominent position: the top right of the page. While we know this is a bit of a change from what you're used to, we've found this to be the best way to strike a balance between making ads more visible and maintaining our focus on providing you with a great user experience.

To help make our ads platform even easier to understand and provide a place for advertisers to get started creating campaigns, we've built an advertising microsite. Access it at: www.orkut.com/advertise or by clicking on the "advertise" link in the footer of your orkut page.


We hope you enjoy these new additions to orkut and that you take the time to check out our new advertising microsite. On it you'll find advertising options both for established advertisers and for people looking to create a campaign for the very first time. You know we love feedback, so if you have anything you'd like to share, just head to the orkut Help Forum.

Posted by Miles Johnson, Marketing Manager

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Introducing the orkut mobile app

When we first launched a version of orkut for mobile phones, we couldn't have predicted how popular it would become. Every day, many of you sign in to orkut on your phones from all over the world– checking out scraps, updates from friends, and even viewing photos. As mobile phones are becoming one of the major ways that you access orkut, we thought it was about time to introduce a mobile application that offered you the site's core functionality wherever you happen to be.

Today, we're thrilled to announce the beta launch of the orkut mobile application, a downloadable app for Java-enabled phones (including popular phones like the Nokia N95, Nokia 6300, and Sony Ericsson W580i), that truly makes your orkut experience as mobile as you are. Check out our top five favorite features of the orkut mobile app:

• Upload photos to orkut on-the-go, directly from your phone.
• View scraps, friends' updates, and photo albums while you're offline.
• Share your orkut albums with all of your friends whether they use orkut or not (via SMS).
• Easily call or SMS your orkut friends and address book contacts from within the app.
• Get automatic updates when your friends change their contact information or orkut profiles.

Excited? Install the orkut mobile app (available in English and Portuguese), by heading to m.google.com/orkut on your mobile phone's browser. While the app is free to download and use, your mobile provider's regular data charges will apply.

We've done our best to make this app accessible to as many of you as possible, so as long as you have Java enabled phone and a data plan, you should be all set. For more detailed info on supported phones, check out our help center. Once you've had a chance to play with this new app, we'd love to hear your feedback, so head to the Help Forum and let us know what you think.

Posted by Surojit Chatterjee, Google Mobile Team

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Our condolences

The orkut team was deeply saddened to learn of the recent accident involving Air France Flight 447. We would like to offer our heartfelt condolences to the families and friends of all of the victims.

As we know that many of you are also troubled by this tragedy, we'd like to point you to a user created community meant to help you show support for those affected (in Portuguese): Vôo AF 447 - Luto.

Posted by the orkut Team.

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Staying secure on orkut

Working on orkut security, I know that fraudulent sites sometimes try to take advantage of orkut users like you and me. To help make sure that everyone is able to have a fun and safe experience on the site, I thought I'd share a few quick tips that I've picked up during my time on the orkut team. A bunch of these might seem like no-brainers, but hopefully you'll learn something new here as well:

• Create a tough password: While "yourname123" is always a tempting password to create, keep in mind that it's just as easy for a malicious user to figure out as it is for you to remember. Try creating a password that involves a combination of letters and numbers that no one could easily guess, even if they know basic details about who you are. The same goes for your security question (the question that pops up if you forget your password)– you should try your best to pick a question that only you can answer.

• Keep your private details private: Never share your orkut username and password with friends or on a site not authenticated by Google. orkut does not allow any external sites to store orkut login information and will never request that you enter it anywhere outside of the orkut login page. To be on the safe side, always check that your address bar reads "https://www.google.com/accounts/ServiceLogin?....." and nothing else when sharing your orkut user name and password.

• Leave the coding to the engineers: Never copy and paste code into your address bar, no matter what it claims to be able to do. Typically these scripts actually send messages (in your name!) to your friends trying to trick them into giving up their personal information.

• Downloads and orkut don't mix: Never download any file off of orkut, especially those that end in '.vb' or '.exe'. These files are often viruses that can infect your computer and start sending thousands of spam messages on your behalf. Sites offering special orkut themes or skins are particularly risky.

• Think twice about external links: Links to sites outside of orkut that appear in scraps or posts have not been verified by the orkut team, and could lead you to harmful sites. We'd recommend only clicking on links that go to trusted sites or those that are from other orkut users you know well.

• Anti-Virus software is always a good call: Even the most conscientious orkuteer can fall victim to a phishing attack, so it's important to always be alert and prepared. Regularly scanning your computer with updated anti-virus software is a great way to keep your computer secure. Haven't installed anti-virus software on your computer yet? Check out Google Pack.
  

• For new orkut features, check out apps!: Sometimes an unofficial site may claim to offer special orkut features, but these sites are known for taking over orkut accounts and directly violate our Terms of Service. If you're looking for fun new orkut functionality, check out the thousands of applications that we have available. All of these apps have been built by talented developers according to standards that we believe will help to keep you safe online. If you haven't visited the app directory recently, take a look– you might be surprised at how much cool stuff you find.

If you have more tips for staying safe on orkut that you think could benefit others, head over to the orkut help forum and share them!

Posted by O. Todd Yates, orkut Abuse and Security

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More controls for community owners

Like many of you, a number of us on the orkut team are proud owners of active communities on orkut. While we love to see the discussions and divergent opinions that often come up, there are definitely times when the passion of our community members becomes overwhelming. Members sometimes start flame wars – creating new topics or polls to get their point across on the community home page, topics list and polls list pages. This degrades the overall experience for the other community members and often leaves us searching for ways to keep things under control.

To help with this issue, I developed a feature that does exactly that. Community owners now have access to a new setting: "only owner and moderators can create forum topics," which they can turn on and off as they wish. If you want to give it a try, just go to the "edit profile" page of your community.




When passions run high, you can now make use of this feature within your community. You can also try creating a few new forum topics like "Rant Room" or "Suggest new forum topics," where community members can continue their discussions without affecting everyone else's experience.

Sometimes the moderators on our communities even create new polls or forum topics to gauge how things are going. We've found the question: "Which member do you find most disruptive to quality conversations in the community and should be kicked out?" to be a particularly effective way of making sure that things stay civil.

We hope this new feature makes it even easier to maintain active and engaged communities on orkut. Have feedback about this feature or other advice for how to keep a community cool during heated discussions? Head to the orkut U2U group and give us a heads up.

Posted by Siddarth Naidu, Software Engineer

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