Orkut will continue to grow till the day it decides to emulate Facebook.

And india cant have a network in its national language,like china or japan because in INDIA there is a different language in every state! And Hindi, the national language is hated on many parts of india itself .. NOrth east , tamil nadu for instance ..

So there you go .. Thats why Orkut picked up!

Once you have have picked your poison – you will only move if something else allows you to do what you are currently doing much better.

Google revamping in light of what Facebook is doing only makes sense and in a way shows Google the way.

Google’s response to Facebook will have to be better then Facebook – otherwise success will be reduced.

Important to note is that Facebook for example in Australia has only really grown over the last 3months. On a population of 20 million people – Facebook grew from 90.000 to 535.000 today. If there is something better – people will switch and try – and if it is better – they will forget about Facebook or possibly use both – should Google open up to all platforms, including Facebook.

FACEBOOK KEY CHALLENGE is that the media hype and impact it has had on productivity means it has been blocked by most corporates. GOOGLE is not and it is unlikely it will be.

Facebook is new, and in riding a hyped wave – it will be interesting to see what happens when the party is over. I am not suggesting a demise of Facebook, just less hype and more focus on feet on the ground. We cannot look around corners – but Google packs an awesome punch and it will be interesting to see the results of the revamp.

Working on a global/corporate community led innovation initiative – from where I sit – there will be space for both or all. They will probably co-exist.

Where do Brazil and India rank against the US in ad spend?

A few more things

1) The TV publicity orkut gets when the profiles of glasgow bombing accused kafeel ahmed, slained mumbai teenager Adnan patrawala or virginia shootout victim Minal Shah are found on orkut , whereas Anti-India and Anti-Hindu communities on orkut are highlighted on Page1 of the newspapers.

2) Orkut is no more for 15-25 age group. People in their 30s have started making their profiles on orkut, the 40s something are trying to figure out how to do it, where as those in 50s are inquiring about what is this all about. The curiosity is all-around.

3) Facebook is picking up suddenly in eliter circles, but orkut profiles are being made by people who made “Aap Ka Suroor” a hit movie. Our 10th grade pass officeboy has a profile on orkut too.

4) I can add someone to my hot-list or crush-list and wait eternally that the lady will someday add me to her hot-list or crush-list and orkut will be my matchmaker.

5) I am waiting for the day when all Indian Men also start getting friendship requests from the fairer sex.

Orkut’s been the inspiration of around 40 Social Networks in India!

1) It lets you peek into other people’s private conversations (and picture albums), and it allows you to have private conversations for the world’s benefit.

2) By some fluke of nature, it became acceptable for Indian ladies to upload pics on Orkut (they used to be very stingy with uploading pics before this). Thats all that was needed for the networking effects to set in.

3) Hi5 – which had started to gain some weight around here, was too lumpy and ad infested, and orkut offered a cleaner and easily navigable alternative.

add india’s sociological context and the needs which follow from that to the above. and you have a big hit on your hands.

Not to mention (and as already pointed out earlier) that there are lot of member spends hours ogling female members pictures. All the yahoo messenger crowd of India who used to spend countless hours in chat room in 2001-2004 has moved to Orkut But google has to do some serious work to prevent spam(captcha alone won’t do the work)

If you walk down the street and ask about Facebook, I’m sure you’d only get a blank stare from 1 out of 5 people.

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Orkut (Google’s Social Network) announced a new look yesterday. They haven’t had much success in North America or Europe (Bebo is hottest in Europe)…

Okay, so maybe that was hyperbole. But truly, Facebook is a phenomenon this summer. A social and cultural phenomenon. All the cool kids are doing it.

1. the way the experience of the site fits into cultural characteristics (english version or localized, how important trendy design is in the country, how tolerating of clutter you are, privacy concerns and so on..).

2. market conditions (basically, whether anyone else has gotten critical mass for mass scale adoption and if this site has lacking features).

In Sweden, Facebook has just exploded this summer, with an adoption rate that must be close to unprecedented in the history of the web. And this is mostly because of Facebook’s features and structured interface, and because all previously available communities in Sweden have been either too niché, not respecting privacy enough, too cluttered or too corny/uncool/kids-oriented.

Like I said, it’s a lot about cultural characteristics. In my experience, the swedish girls are driving the adoption of Facebook, as many more girls/women than guys care for networking and community. And they have probably taken to Facebook because of the privacy features, the applications for it, and most importantly, the structured and clean interface and photo application.