Thanks from an orkuteer

Posted by Prashant, orkuteer*

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

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

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

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

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

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