As expected, Google is calling new feature that blocked users from exporting their Orkut contacts a “bug.” An update today on the Data Liberation Blog (the group we specifically called out last night when wondering what was going on) notes that while Google was in the process of “adding additional security measures to Orkut Friends Export” it inadvertently broke the entire functionality.
If that’s actually the case, here’s what I love about this:
1) Google says it was trying to add security features to improve Okrut Friends Export, yet it apparently didn’t bother to test the functionality after adding said feature. If they had, they would have immediately realized it was broken, like so many users did immediately. Google is a company meticulous about its testing of things, so that seems a bit odd.
2) The fact that Google would add additional security measures immediately following the revelation that Facebook had a tool it was promoting in India to allow users to easily import their Orkut friends is interesting. And by “interesting,” I mean suspicious. Does Facebook’s importing tool still work? Anyone in India, feel free to let us know in the comment.
I’m not saying this wasn’t, in fact, a bug. I’m just saying that the timing of said bug was interesting to say the least. And it certainly doesn’t seem like the usually careful Google cared very much about creating a bug that stopped the hemorrhaging of its Orkut users over to Facebook in India.
Sometimes “bugs” are convenient until you get called out on them. Just sayin’.
[photo: flickr/the consumerist]
“And it certainly doesn’t seem like the usually careful Google cared very much about creating a bug that stopped the hemorrhaging of its Orkut users over to Facebook in India.”
Crikey, that was a long tongue-twisty sentence!
LOL..Yesterday, Facebook had removed the ‘Import from orkut’ thingy from the site and now, it is back again..
By the way, I wonder why Google shouldn’t stop the export from happening..Social networking is not moving from one network to another every two years, but browsing and making new friends (or reconnecting to old friends).
Orkut friends export shouldn;t exist.
But Google cannot do web policing and tell users of its social network what they should do and not do. If Google’s really user-focused, its should let users to export their contacts to FB. If its very, very user-oriented, it should improve Orkut and win back its users.
I’m sure Orkut users love it for its simple interface. Why not steer clear off the real bugs instead of “creating” bugs like this?
Bug or not, I ended up importing all my Orkut contacts into Facebook.
Does Facebook have a friend export feature?
Orkut was fine until recent few months.
Orkut in India has become extremely buggy and very
un googlish.
As far as i know Orkut is no longer being supported by Google US. And these bugs started to surface since then.
Orkut was always buggy. Remember “No donut for you”? they used to appear more frequently than fail whale =D
It was the bugginess that irked me the most along with the fact that every second scrap I got was from a spammer. Eventually I stopped using the service.
Orkut did help me find a lot of my school friends and they say every Indians on Orkut. Now most of those friends are on my gchat list. (It gets imported automatically). If facebook had a lite version then, people would have opted for it. So Facebook has been a slow to turn to the east, but it’s still not too late.
Does Facebook have a company-wide Data Liberation initiative?
I have zero insider information on this but I’d expect it was a lack of regression testing when faced with the prospect of automation tools to siphon users away by scripting that was deemed “abusive” — and then implementing a hurdle to that (likely) mechanism.
Parsimony and all that…
Even a simple regression 2 min test with iMacros would have caught that bug….
> Does Facebook’s importing tool still work?
no, it appears that google has prevented “hotlinking” to the contacts tool, i.e. you can only access it if you click from orkut now.
Do you really think that Google would be foolish enough to think that this “feature” would go unnoticed? The timing is curious, but come on sometimes a coincidence is just that.
Another coincidence, Google just changed their corporate motto: Don’t be Evil, Bad is Good, and Good is Subjective.
I had imported a few of my friends from orkut day before yesterday. Would try again today to see if the functionality is “broken”
Do you know of the application myorkut on facebook that has more than 200K users? It helped people access their Orkut profile from within facebook. This app is popular among people in India and Brazil.
http://labnol.b...ave-scraps.html
(ps: I wrote that app)
“Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.”
I believe this was a genuine bug/mistake. Google has been committed for years to the idea that users can export their data and/or leave Google if they want, including a statement to that effect (”we would never trap user data”) by CEO Eric Schmidt at Web 2.0 a few years ago. Here’s a blog post that talks about the ways you can export your data out of Google from 2007: http://www.matt...sers-data-good/ and Google has enabled even more data export since then.
this was not a mistake… exporting works on orkut again but facebook’s tool appears to be broken. it looks like google has prevented anyone from hotlinking to the export option, so it only works if you access it through orkut.com.
This is one of the reasons why I trust Google & Twitter more than Facebook. Google lets you export your data whenever you want to wherever you want, Twitter allows you to delete your account whenever you want, and Facebook doesn’t allow you to do either. It’s almost scary when you think about it — Facebook owns your personal information for life, and it doesn’t make a difference what their privacy statement says, with words to the effect of: “You own your data” that’s a load of BS — if I owned my own data, then let me delete my own data or move my own data elsewhere, like Google and Twitter allow me to do.
Just one mans opinion
That’s bad. Facebook only allow to deactivate the account. I think there isn’t many people know about these…
Its sad but orkut is going to be India’s friendster very soon. Orkut folks got to wake up, act like a startup and keep adding features and change that ugly curvy layout to something more useful and easy to use.
“I’m not saying this wasn’t, in fact, a bug. I’m just saying that the timing of said bug was interesting to say the least.”
I don’t know why but you just reminded me of Glenn Beck. lol
Heh. I was thinking the exact same thing. I think what MG said was warranted, but still – the argument style is the same.
I’m really frustrated that Orkut is so lacking in direction and resources. Google really needs to get things in gear over there if they hope to survive 2010. And I really do want them to survive, because I hate the people who run Facebook. I just don’t trust them. All their instincts are wrong, and they never do anything that’s good for their users unless the users force them to.
It leaves a bad taste in my mouth every time I think about it.
Google doesn’t want to be in the soc-net business it seems (burnt by myspace?)— that’s why there is wave rather than a stronger jaiku/orkut
@ Brock +1
I deactivated my FaceBook account in 2007 it send a message to all my connections something to the effect of ‘this person no longer wants to be your friend’ causing serious offense in many cases.
FB are completely ruthless and contemptuous towards users (and ‘user data’ which is actually owned by Facebook)
I really do fear for FaceBook users.
MG is the same age as Glenn Beck.
Haha great post, thanks MG
one minute google is the good guy and the next it’s a baaaad man! the boogy man! gotta love TC.
Hi, I am not able to use that facebook feature in India.
I tried it but seems that there is a problem.
Even if it is planned, its too little too late, as I had pointed out in an earlier comment.
Orkut lost it when
1. They implemented themes, making the pages heavier (and uglier). Something like what you did to your Gmail
2. The Facebook stream is a much more engaging medium than scraps
I guess Google simply forgot about Orkut, there has not been much innovation in the past few years
This could have been a big PR, if not anti-trust, nightmare for Google. The anti-Google crowd would have a field day with something like this, for example.
Google properties are far and away better about enabling user data for liberation. As such I am inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt. At some point, it would be nice for Facebook and others to follow suit. I would also like to congratulate Google on increasing share against Bing, which correspondingly lost share for the first time, according to numbers for September.
I forgot to mention that I work for Google.
Yep, facebook popped a “some of your friends from orkut may be on facebook” thing in my face.. The procedure was a bit too irksome, and besides most of my contacts are already connected to me on fb.
Why does fb have to be so blatant about it?
Was having a talk with my cousin today and interestingly he mentioned that there was just so much more to do in facebook than orkut. Turns out the apps and games in facebook are a big draw and the teens just digg it . orkut on the other hand seems to be a lil boring with limited stuff to do.
Leave it to TC to exaggerate everything into conspiracy (who can blame them though, the line between news media and marketing is thinner than ever). This was obviously a true mistake on Google’s end from the start.
Tom
I agree with Anand Srinivasan. THanks for the post
yeh…I utilized that bug and got some of my friends in FB. Orkut suckz.
Facebook does not allow users to move their data from Facebook to other social media sites. (BAD)
Google does allow users to move their data from Orkut to other sites (GOOD)
Once again, Google is either NOT evil OR LESS evil depending on YOUR perception.
Please acknowledge that PERCEPTION IS NOT REALITY! Perception is YOUR REALITY and ONLY YOUR REALITY.
My perception is my reality and only my reality.
My reality says that Google is still NOT evil. My hypothesis is that Google will still NOT BE EVIL in the future.
Worst case scenario they are LESS EVIL than almost everyone else.
So yes, I will give them the benefit of the doubt, they have earned that and more!
Hey Google please run fiber over the last mile to homes and apartments in the US, team up with Greenlight (ie. Wilson N.C., 100MB/100MB for $100 per month)
Any other company reading this, 40% of the Internet market, served with your fiber, charging $52 / month for 1 GB/1GB of bandwidth would be worth the following:
$6,390,012,148 ($6.3) Billion per month
$76,680,145,776 ($76.6) Billion per year.
As they would say on Survivor: “Worth Playing for?”
I would come to work for/with you tomorrow!