Just yesterday, we wrote about how Facebook was quickly gaining on Google’s social network, Orkut, in places like India where Orkut is still the big dog. One reason for Facebook’s gains is that they’ve been heavily promoting the fact that you can import your Orkut contacts via a special tool. Well guess what? As of today, that tool no longer works.
And that’s not all. Previously, even without the tool, it was pretty easy to export you contacts from Orkut into a CSV (comma separated value) file. But that’s no longer working either. The option still exists on the Friends page in Orkut, but when you click on it, and fill in the CAPTCHA, it simply redirects you to Orkut’s main page.
Coincidence? Maybe. But we’ve already gotten emails from users in India who saw our post and rushed to try and export their friend data to escape Orkut, only to be shot down. And let’s not forget that Google and Facebook have been down a similar road before. Last year, Facebook blocked Google’s Friend Connect from accessing the data on its network. This led to a silly he said/she said spat in which the users were the losers. Could this be payback?
Facebook is undoubtedly increasingly interested in India not only because it is the largest social network in the world, but thanks to Facebook Lite, it’s much more accessible to a wide range of people. Orkut, meanwhile, is, well, a social network that Google seems to talk about as little as possible.
To test the friend export functionality tonight, I logged into my Orkut account for the first time in what must be years. I was shocked to find that there were other people I knew actually on it, that Google was recommending that I friend. So I sent a few requests out, and within minutes, this is the reply I got back (over email):
“what the f**k?”
The message behind that being, “why are you using Orkut?” For some people in India right now, sadly, it appears that they have no choice.
I wonder what Google’s Data Liberation team thinks about this? I have a feeling the official word we’ll get back from Google is “bug.” But given the timing and the fact that two different ways to export your friends broke at once, I’m not so sure that the word they’re really looking for isn’t “hypocrisy.”
Update: As expected, Google is calling this a “bug.” Still, there some interesting things about this “bug.” And it’s not yet clear if Facebook’s Orkut importing tool is working again.
i was able to download the CSV file but that was before facebook’s alert message made headlines all over the web.
yep, try it now. doesn’t work.
can confirm it. not working right now. here in india.
orkut contacts are synced with gmail contacts.. so if you give gmail password to facebook all your orkut friends you get.
alexa says orkut rank 4 and facebook 5 in india. facebook this week promoted import from orkut in homepage of everyone in india and brazil.
Not working here either.
A single issue on one service among several. Did they turn it off on anything else? No? Then it seems reasonable to assume this is a bug rather than intentional.
It’s hard to see people jumping to the worst conclusion as anything but people pushing an anti-google agenda. MG at least acknowledged the likelyhood that it’s a bug, while noting the genuinely suspect timing.
I don’t know why this reply ended up here. I clicked the top level comment node’s reply link.
it works now
I’m from India and most of my Orkut friends (at least the ones I care about) have already moved to Facebook. Most of my Orkut contacts are also in my Gmail address book and Facebook can access that to help me import them – so this is not a big deal.
Google would do better to actually improve the Orkut service than to resort to ‘bugs’ like this one
agreed.
Why have you used this image MG?
And here’s Google blatantly violating copyrights by scanning copyright protected books… trying to stand behind their “information wants to be free” mantra.
Well Google, the contacts also want to be free. Why don’t you let them?
This is completely against Google’s new data liberation front: http://www.dataliberation.org/
I have trouble believing that this is on purpose.
Your right…. Google would NEVER EVER do anything evil.
It really is just a “bug” and merely a coincidence.
The real thing about orkut which facebook can never beat is communities. Communities at orkut rock, its a super duper source of information. Some people complain of spam in them, but tell me where in the internet there is NO spam ? I personally prefer facebook, but to dig in to some info – heck to get a live stream for a cricket/soccer match – head to the orkut communities.
That’s right. I have been trying to get used to facebook communities for about a year now but the feature is just not as good as Orkut. I run an active community with 8000+members and would love to port it to facebook… discussion threads and all. But that’s wishful thinking if Orkut isnt even allowing contact exports.
+5 True. If you ask me I would want a social network which is a mix of both Orkut and Facebook.
- Orkut’s simplicity, scraps, communities
- FB’s privacy, status updates, comments, message box and wall
I think FB’s photo albums are better.
I’m happy to ask folks about this, but I’d guess it falls in the “don’t ascribe to malice” category.
Sounds about right.
After noting the early wonky machinations of Orkut as it grew… and the errors one would often see…
I’m inclined to view this as an action to ward off automation tools vs. actual live user interaction paths through the application.
am so glad i exported ma contacts.. just two dayz ago..
well i dont think it would be a problem if one is using their gmail accounts for orkut they can still export their orkut contacts from the google contacts and import it into facebook.
With all the manpower at Google, why don’t they just improve Orkut to be competitive with Facebook? Google vs. Facebook would bring out so much innovation, but instead we’re stuck with MySpace vs. Facebook.
Yup, just tried from Brazil and it’s broken. How do you export your contacts as a CSV from Facebook, though? I’d love to do that so that I can reply to my messages from within my email client!
Orkut Scks Big time
nd frankly speaking even facebook does but compared to both i wud give facebook the edge
but been angry on facebook due to this Lite stuff
it got activated on my account and i am not able to revert back 
Any Solutions for that ????
Click on the Settings link and then on your name. It should take you back to old FB
Don’t be evil, Google.
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Googles social smokescreen? Google does not want a massive social presence or they would have one. they dont care to compete in the US or they would. they stick to what makes the most money without looking like a internet slaughter house monopoly. sooner or later they will need a massive US social presence or they will not be able to evolve and compete in the social discovery revolution were experiencing.
Techcrunch stop jumping the gun posting stuff you haven’t verified. It’s just a bug.
I don’t really care if Google’s is blocking people from exporting their contacts into Facebook. Facebook deserves this given their walled off approach and treatment towards Google Friend Connect.
I was not a fan of Orkut anytime. Cant even call is as a social medial. Lacks the impressive nature of social things. Wondering how come it got clicked in India and Brazil. Compared to MySpace,Facebook and some others Orkut is a crap.
How about this FaceBooks Ads Vs Google AdSense?
Can TC do a study about this and post? How Facebook Ads will shape ad industry. I like this Ad part of Facebook. Number of corporates seems to be showing lot of interest in Facebook Ads.
May be MG can investigate and post it here?
I agree. I tried playing with Orkut. Even if all my friends were on it, I’d still hate it. Everything is so difficult to work with compared to FB, and Myspace for that matter. I couldn’t stand it.
I turned off Adblock to see what FB’s ads were like. They’re probably the only ads I can honestly say I’ve clicked on and found something useful. FB has a good advertising model. Gmail ads show me relevant stuff too and I’ve clicked on quite a few.
I can see why data mining is so important to these companies.
So what happened to http://www.netw...-ceo-take.html? At Web 2.0 in 2006, Eric Schmidt said:
“If you look at the historical large company behavior, they ultimately do things to protect their business practices or monopoly or what have you, against the choice of the users,” he said. “The more we can, for example, let users move their data around, never trap the data of an end user, let them move it if they don’t like us, the better.”
Or http://blogs.zd...om/BTL/?p=3902?
“We would never trap user data,” he said.
It is astonishing that google would pull this over okrut. How can anyone have any faith in their larger cloud vision/apps if there is a chance they will pull a bullshit move like this when they start to lose?
This is poor marketing from Google/Orkut. It would have been better if they had rolled out some great features instead, considering Google Wave and other great projects going on.
An apology is due if they wan’t to save face, and a feature rollout or two could get them back up. Not that I am much of a user of Orkut compared to Facebook at this point.
Hmm, Google supports data portability and has a temporary bug — and it’s a big deal.
On the other hand, Facebook traps *all your data* and doesn’t have *any* option to export (so they can’t have a bug), and it’s fine?
You people are barking up the wrong tree. WHY CAN”T I GET MY DATA OUT OF FACEBOOK?!?!? I think they’re the evil ones.
you can get it out, via Microsoft live spaces you can add all your FB friends to your contacts list, I’m sure there are other social networks that sync up to facebook. I’ve been watching this as it used to be against FB rules but through trusted partners it’s okay now – for the moment.
who cares you will be dead in 2012…
When Facebook overtakes Orkut in India I believe they will the groundbreaking mark of 1 billion users. Another place the Orkut dominates is Brazil, with 96% of the market and 80% using it at least once a day, but that also is loosing ground to Facebook.
TechCrunch treats Google with kid gloves. What an absolute joke. If Yahoo or Microsoft did something like this TC would be screaming bloody murder.
I am a Indian, and i have stopped using Orkut like 2 years ago. Most Probably, because people started thinking Orkut is not cool and most of my friends also were on FaceBook.
But Surely, india too is catching up with FaceBook bug, so time is not far when we will bid Orkut Goodbye.
I’m afraid we have spoiled Google so much that it will become even more evil than Microsoft very soon.
Thanks god i manage to export my friends list from orkut.!
I know Orkut’s dying..
ORKUT senmisin ? Ben Mete ,
Belkide birisi seni taklit ediyor ?
Well, Google has been doing such things in PAST… just because its GOOGLE so that can do anything on this earth… They can disable accounts for adsense users on 33USD or even 650USD, not giving any explanations and details to them.. but did anyone ever realized that where the hell that 650 bucks going.. not to advertisers.. not at all they have been charged and GOOGLE is jst getting all this money to bring new so called backlash known as WAVE… believe me there is nothing new in WAVE.. I have seen that MOVIE and i was so relieved that if they could have scch bugs in live demo then why do we bother for everything to work fine …… again im repeating its GOOGLE so thay can do it… and about WAVE.. most of the functionalities and features are available on various new sites.. its just that thaey have gathered and put it under theri brand…. EVEN that wave similar to this TC comments feature the only thing that if you edit it wont be highlighted…
I wish i were a resident of US and Could so them for the hell of online frauds they are making…
well.. thats my comment.. my feelings so if anyone gets hurt then I excuse..
well, I’m not hurt, but you should be mindful of your usage of caps…it’ rather DISTURBING…
but it seems that there is no serious proof to move this from the “suky coincidence” folder to the “paranoid conspiracy proof” one…
I totally agree with you, and support your ideas. facebook is way into evil.
Well I would agree with the sentiment that Google is Google and can do all the sh!t that pleases them to benefit them and their business. Also if MS or Yahoo were to do the same them all would be crying more than this. I guess the motto of Google and all the talks of data liberation and monopoly applied only when MS is in power else when they do sh!t all is fine
well if that is the case – why cant Facebook allow me to download my email list of my friends – and allow me to import it to Google – this is totally 1 way – i can understand Google doing this and would ok it since Facebook does reciprocate.
The solution in one word: scraping.
http://en.wikip...ki/Web_scraping
I like most of MG’s articles….keep rocking MG!!!
Common guys move to Facebook as soon as you can. Time will soon come when there wont be a free entry to Facebook. Or probably you will need a F1 Visa to visit Facebook
I dont know if its an isolated problem, but facebook doesn’t let me share embedded youtube videos.
what is Orkut?
I do not have ‘hard information’ however it does sound like a dumb “Peter Chane’ shit move to me..
Is there any way to import your facebook contacts to any other service what so ever ???????
Why would they be treated any differently?
thx
Seb
So Google disabled a feature Facebook never offered in the first place.
It´s ok to be upset about it, but shouldn´t you at least mention the total lack of that particular feature by Facebook?
Totally agree – its nonsense – i think people should start demanding their right to download the email IDs of their friends – its their contacts and their data..
The export is now fixed on Orkut. BTW when will Facebook let me export my contact list out? Why aren’t we thrashing FB for being a walled garden?
Exactly
Seb
The bug has been fixed. See http://datalibe...-bug-fixed.html
I’d give them the benefit of the doubt for now as this type of behavior would be atypical for Google.
I am not a big fan of Facebook but I like Orkut. Reason: Zillions of game feeds on Facebook makes the information cluttered. Orkut is simple. Although some of my friends go to Facebook just to play games. Ironical.
So if Facebook wants Google to export its contact list – why cant Google export Facebook’s – why is it that Facebook does not allow users to download their friend’s email list???