Social networking numbers are out and Orkut sits at #16. Since Or
kut was built by Google Engineers in 20% of time, it behaves like one. It gives less than 20% of the features a social networking site should have and barely makes it in the top 20 of social networking sites worldwide. This has costed Google leadership in Social Networking, eventually leading to expensive acquisitions. Google has blogger, google video, youtube, AJAX chat interface in Gmail, picassa and lots of other products which should have been a part of fully developed Social Networking site.
Orkut should provide a way for users to share photos/slideshow on their profile, allow them to share blogs via RSS, share their youtube videos etc. Most Orkut users have blogs, online photos and use youtube. Just provide them a way to share them via Orkut. These are mature products with strong user base and have to be integrated seamlessly. Anything done now will be too little,too little, since orkut lacks the momentum that other sites have. Why do I care ? Well Orkut is huge in India and most of my friends are on Orkut. Would definitely appreciate some improvements.
