File transfer in orkut and iGoogle chat

Have you ever wanted to quickly send a file to a friend who's online? Now it's easy! We're excited to announce that you can now share pictures, documents, and other files with your friends while chatting in orkut and iGoogle. To give it a try you don't need to install anything, simply start a conversation with a friend and click Send a file... in the 'Actions' menu:

This feature is also compatible with the file transfer functionality in the Google Talk downloadable software, so you can share files directly from the web with folks who use the desktop version.

File transfer is available in orkut and iGoogle only for now. We're working on bringing it to Gmail as well, and we'll keep you posted when that happens!

Posted by Lizhen Wang, software engineer

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Now you can easily add images to your scraps!

We're always listening to what users have to say about orkut, and we're constantly working to improve your orkut experience. One of the suggestions we've received many times is to bring back to the ability to add photos to your scraps to the new orkut. We're happy to announce that this feature is now available!

To add images to your scraps, first click the text box to write and edit a message. You'll then see customization options, such as font color and emoticons. Click the image icon to add an image to your your scrap:

You can upload images from your computer, add from your Picasa Web Albums, or search for them in Google Images.

As we like to say, a picture is worth a thousand words. So, hopefully this feature will improve the way you share things with your friends on orkut!

Posted by Marco Domingues, orkut operations team

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Import your photos from Picasa Web Albums to orkut

For many of us, the best part about taking photos is sharing them with friends and family online.

That's why we've integrated Picasa Web Albums (Google's free photo hosting and sharing service) with orkut, so that you can directly copy your favorite Picasa photos onto orkut with just a few clicks and easily share them with your orkut friends.

Look for the "import from Picasa" link when you create an orkut album from the orkut photos page or when adding photos within an existing album.

When you click on it, a photo picker will show up where you can access all of your Picasa Web Albums. Choose an album to see all the photos in it:

Next, just select the photos you want to upload to orkut. Be assured, the photos will not be erased from your Picasa account. A copy of the photos will become available on orkut once you complete the upload.

The cool convenience with this feature is that you don't have to download the photos to your computer and then re-upload them to orkut again from your computer.

While the photos you have chosen from your Picasa Web Album are being uploaded to orkut, you can drag and drop the photos to reorder them, caption them, rotate them, select an album cover and also select friends you want to share the photos with. To save your time, we also import all the photo captions from Picasa Web Albums if they already exist.

And to make your life even easier, we've integrated a face detection feature for the photos uploaded from Picasa. You can quickly add names for people whose faces are detected without having to identify them manually.

You can now look forward to many more comments and conversations around your photos on orkut. Wait no more! Head to your orkut photos page, browse through your Picasa Web Albums and exhibit your fabulous photos to your orkut friends. And don't forget to let us know what you think of this feature.

Posted by Megha Gupta, software engineer

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Orkut for Android — live folders, photo upload and more!

Orkut is now ready to roll on mobile phones with Android. Now you can stay connected to your orkut friends wherever you go -- via scrap notifications, direct photo uploads to your orkut albums, and a phonebook synced to your orkut friends' phone numbers and status messages. Orkut for Android lets you stay in touch with pals through...

Orkut friends live folders
Simply add the list of your orkut friends as a live folder on your home screen, and you'll be able to browse through your friends list even when not under data network coverage. The live folder also lets you communicate (via call, scrap or SMS) with your friends in a single click. To install a live folder, click "Menu > Add > Folders > Orkut" on your Android device's homescreen after installing the orkut for Android application.

Photo uploads to your orkut albums
Gone are the days when you needed to download photos from your Android phone to your computer and then upload them to your orkut albums. Now you can simply upload photos from your Android Photo Gallery. Just click "Menu > Share > Orkut" while browsing your photos in the Android Photo Gallery to get started.

Scrap notification
You will get notifications on your Android device when you have new scraps on orkut. The notifications will appear on your Android device notification bar; clicking on notifications will take you to your scrapbook page.


To install the orkut for Android application visit Android Market from your Android device and search for "orkut" under the social applications category. You can also directly scan the QR code below to install it. Note that this application is available only for Android devices running version 1.6 or higher.

Hope to see you on orkut for Android soon!

Posted by Deepak Sethi and Alok Goel, software engineer and product manager

(Cross-posted on the Google Mobile Blog)

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Happy St. Patrick's Day!

It's March 17th, which means it's time to put on your favorite green hat, shirt, or shoes, grab a three leaf clover and head outside to celebrate St. Patrick's Day!

St. Patrick's Day, named after the patron saint of Ireland, is a holiday celebrating friendship, fun, and of course, Irish culture. In countries around the world (including the US, Argentina, and Australia, just to name a few), you can see people, restaurants and even whole city streets decked out in green and in the mood to party.

The orkut team wanted to make sure that we wore our green as well (in the US you can be pinched if you’re caught without it!), so we created this special holiday doodle:

Want to get together with friends for your own celebration of the date? Try creating an event, and be sure to let all of your orkut friends know that you’ve got the St. Patrick’s Day spirit by changing the color of your orkut profile to green as well.

Here's to a very green (and pinch-free) day!

Posted by Karen Callahan, orkut operations team

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Promoting voice and video chat

Orkut is all about keeping people connected, and a lot of people use orkut's voice and video chat to stay in touch. Lately, we've been hard at work making it work even better, and the reception has been so great that we're giving voice and video chat a new home at the top of the chat window:

If you’ve never used voice or video chat in orkut, it’s easy to get started. You'll just need a webcam and a microphone (if you don’t have a webcam, we have some recommendations). If you already have a webcam and a microphone, you’ll just need to download a small plugin for video chat, available for free at www.google.com/chat/video

With the plugin installed and your camera enabled, your friends will see a small green camera icon like this next to your name in their chat lists. Then, to start a voice or video chat, simply click either the voice or video icon in the toolbar and talk away to your heart's content - all for free via orkut.

Once you start chatting, if you want a larger view, you can pop out the window and make it bigger. We hope you'll enjoy chatting even more on orkut with this enhanced feature!

Posted by Bruce Leban, software engineer

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Share photos on orkut directly from Picasa

Most people love taking pictures and sharing them with their friends, and Google is always trying to improve the photo managing experience in our products such as Picasa and orkut. (If you haven’t heard about Picasa yet, the free photo editing tool by Google, you should definitely give it a try!)

The problem is that, sometimes, the photos we take aren't quite ready for sharing. So we have to transfer them to a computer for editing, and then return later to orkut to upload them to an album. That's too much work! So, we're making life easier by giving you a way to upload photos to orkut directly from Picasa.

To get started, you just have to install an orkut button on your Picasa program by downloading the free 'Share photos on orkut' plugin. This plugin (for Windows or Mac) makes sharing your photos with your friends as easy as clicking a button.

If your Internet browser asks your permission to launch the Picasa software, say "yes." Once Picasa opens, simply add the orkut button. (If you need more help, check our Help Center article). Once you're done, you will see a new button with the familiar orkut logo at the bottom of your Picasa screen. It'll look like this:

Next, just select the photos you want to upload to orkut and click the orkut button you've added to Picasa. You can upload your photos to an an existing orkut album, or create a new one.

The photo uploads will begin, and a slider bar will show the progress of your upload. Once it's complete, you'll be redirected to your orkut album page where you can share your photos with your friends, or set privacy levels for your new album.

So start up Picasa, browse through your pictures and share some of your photographic gems with your friends with just a few clicks. We're betting your photos will start plenty of conversations!

Posted by Sandesh Tawari and Arijit De, software engineers

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