On Orkut
Posted on 30 Aug 2007 under Essays, Humour
Orkut changed their colour today! And, the new colour is… ((hold your breath))… BORING WHITE*!… Well, at least the layout now looks much neater, organized and fresh**.
This leaves me wondering (ok, seriously, no it doesn’t, but “leaves me wondering” is a nice phrase to use) whether the change in the look is going to change the experience. I don’t think so (hence, the fact that it doesn’t leave me wondering), because no matter what happens, you will still have the following on orkut:
- People using scrapbooks to send each other messages, and messages to send each other scraps/forwards.
- Testimonials from friends which insult you and do more damage to your reputation than add to it. For example -
awrite buddy here u go
crazy nut head,freakin douchebag,crapy taste in music…superly gay ( as he supports Man U) and still has the balls to argue with me..thats why i think hed make a gr8 lawyer…but he basically sucks monkey ass…totally jobless ud never c him with his books but still manages to get a 75% in his finals xams..uninteresting part removed by Gurdit…suffers from an inferiority complex for some reason..weirdo.. but at times he thinks he zinadine zidane
p.s. hes the son of one of the most influencial man in hytherbad thats why this testimonial otherwise hes not even worth my time..haha..Thanks, “buddy”. As the extremely cliched adage goes : With friends like you, who needs enemies?
- Invitations to join a thousand communities, all of which are “unique”, yet have the same forum games
k, if u r a boy, add 2. if u r a gal, minus 2. v’ll start @ 50, letz c wether v gt 2 0 1st or 100!!! LOLZZ!!
- “hi” followed by a hundred exclamation marks. (This one scares me, so I’ll avoid demonstrating it here)
- People you know being online either on your Yahoo Messenger, MSN Messenger or G Talk, and still “chatting” with you through scraps.
- 7 new messages everytime you log in, 5 of which are for some poor guy or girl in the hospital whose bill value is going to be reduced by 0.50$ every time you forward the message to someone***… that guy/girl must be a billionaire by now.
- Testimonials that aren’t testimonials… examples:
¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨.-”“”-.
¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨/______;¨\
¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨{_______}\|
¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨(/¨a¨a¨\)(_)
¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨(¨.-.#.-.¨’)
¨¨¨¨¨_____ooo__(¨¨¨=¨¨¨)_________
¨¨¨¨/¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨”-.____.-’¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨\
¨¨¨¨|¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨HAPPY ¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨’|
¨¨¨”|¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨|
¨¨¨”|¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨NEW YEAR¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨|
¨¨’¨’|'¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨IN ADVANCE ¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨|
¨¨¨¨\____________________ooo_____/
¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨(___|___)
¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨”\__|__/
¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨”{__|__}
¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨”|_ | _|
¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨”/-’Y'-\
¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨’(__/ \__)_000000_____00000______00000_____0000000
00000000___0000000____0000000___00000000
00____00__00_____00__00_____00________00
_____00___00_____00__00_____00_______00
____00____00_____00__00_____00______00
___00_____00_____00__00_____00_____00
__00______00_____00__00_____00____00
_0000000___0000000____0000000____00
00000000____00000______00000_____00…….,-.______________,=========,
……[|..)_____________)#######((_
....../===============..-..___,--".._\
....."-._,__,__[ BooM ]____\.########/
………………….\…(…).)…).#### O##(
……………………\..\____/,..#######\
…………………….`====”….\#######\
…………………………………….\#######\
………………………………………)##O####|
………………………………………)..####__,”
……………………………………….`..–.”.”(Thanks for the ASCII art… It explains so much about me)
- People going all out to make sure you don’t know who they are. I recently got scrapped by ~(|)~mY ~ pErFeCt ~ MaTcH ~ jUsT ~ wEnT ~ uP ~ iN ~ fLaMeS!! !&%#@%$~~~, and I couldn’t figure out who it was not only because his/her email ID was something obscure, but also because his/her photo album had 12 photos… all of them of South Indian actresses… perfect. Now I know exactly who you are, buddy!
- People writing scraps to you asking your for a “fan exchange”… (you become my fan and I’ll become yours)… Uh… Earth to Bozo! Orkut fans don’t mean squat!
- And for that matter, neither does your “trusty, cool and sexy” rating! Heck, I’m short, skinny, wear dorky glasses and my beard could give Jesus Christ a run for his money… uh.. or divinity, if you will, and I got 90% in all of those, including sexiness. I should be getting 120% in coolness just for tolerating some of the stupidity on orkut!
But after all is said and done, we still use orkut, don’t we? 
*so says the man whose site recently turned almost entirely white
**HA! Gotcha!
***Send this post to at least 46 people. If you don’t, your jeans will disappear in public leaving you feeling cold and embarassed at the same time. Also your girlfriend will dump you for a hamster, and your hamster will dump you for a mouse. You will also be leaked upon by a bird which so happens to be flying exactly over your head just before as you step out of your house on an extremely beautiful day. You have been warned.
firstly, your layout looks pretty good. clean and simple. love the phoenix.
i couldn’t agree more with all these things you have written here. most of the testimonials are incredibly stupid.
have a look at this one:
Bloom where you are planted.
Your talent is God���s gift to you. What you do with it is your gift back to God.
Be yourself. Who else is better qualified.
Don���t postpone joy.
Always laugh when you can. It is cheaper than medicine..
All kids are gifted; some just open their packages earlier than others.
You know your in love when the hardest thing to do is say goodbye
If you love someone tell them, because hearts are often broken bywords left unspoken
Alter your attitude and you can alter your life.
at least it’s not ASCII art but erm..do you call that a testimonial? here’s another one
TO LOVE SOMEONE IS
NATURAL INSTINCT BUT TO BE LOVED BY SOMEONE IS
LUCK. TO LIVE WITH SOMEONE U LOVE IS
ACHIVEMENT BUT TO LIVE WITH SOMEONE WHO LOVES U IS CALLED LIFE
(i left the spaces intact)
i have stopped looking through my orkut mail. as you said, most of them are invitations to some community or the other which honestly doesn’t interest me. if someone actually wants to send a proper message they can do so via proper email and not orkut mail.
the different display names that people use are ridiculous. there’s someone called “{As I Lie In Fields Of Gold} ”
at least it’s not something explicit like the rest of them, but what kind of a display name is this? and if this person is so fond of hiding his identity what the hell is he doing online on a social networking site? i guess all these problems are going to persist. but you know what- this is the beauty of internet. the person can give himself wierd names, have a whole lot of bullshit on his page and brag about him having more ‘friends’ and ‘scraps’ than the other guy. and this exactly is the beauty of orkut.
As I use orkut now, I’m beginning to get a little more impressed at their new layout. It appears to be much smoother, faster and with lesser bugs.
And I continue to remain unimpressed with the people using orkut
I’d appreciate if orkut’s beauty had a little more to do with things like it being an effective social networking platform instead of a platform for showcasing human un-intelligence.
You go girl.
Seriously tho, ive stopped going on Orkut and people have stopped scrapping me. /uncool.
And what is Orkut?
Orkut is a social networking website, a bit like myspace, but thankfully much lighter, and much better. Better than facebook too. In fact, for a social networking website, I’d say it’s not too bad. http://www.orkut.com
I like http://www.facebook.com more.
Facebook is cluttered, and that’s an understatement.
facebook is cluttered, but kinda better than orkut, w.r.t privacy… and yes, i do agree about orkut… you forgot to mention the “can i make/do/create/open friendship with you? becaz u r sec C and kewl” types… lol but then, you aint a girl… so you wouldn’t be getting those. but wait, there are gay guys there…lol
Thats a pretty humorous post there Gurdit. And I agree that people like that are annoying. Thats why I use facebook and only accept people I know to be friends.
Even though I only accept people I know as friends on orkut, I still get that all that I mentioned
Ok then Orkut fails at life.
Go with facebook. Because myspace sucks too.
Facebook sucks harder
That was fuckin good !!
Actually Facebook isn’t that great either, but it’s better than Orkut or MySpace.
Come to think of it again, all the social networking sites suck…
[quote]That was fuckin good !![/quote]
[i]What was fuckin good?[/i]
I disagree… I find orkut better than facebook.
They all suck :p.
Nice one, Gurdit. Very funny.
You’ve pretty much talked about most of the bugs on Orkut.
I kinda like the white look.
It is pretty spaced out, and is not as cluttered as Facebook.
FB used to be good when it started, when it didn’t have trillions of applets.
Now, its plain daft.
I forgot to talk about fake profile creation
facebook is, as you said, utterly cluttered. i have a myspace account but i don’t like that site. i find it very flashy with really bold colours.
orkut is the best site in its category. but thats not saying much considering people are comparing it to rubbish like fropper
I hadn’t heard of fropper before you mentioned it… Considering I’m never going to visit it, I’ve effectively still not heard of it
.
Myspace is definitely the worst. I’ve been to a lot of myspace profiles, and been satisfactorily impressed with hardly 2-3 of them. Generally, bands’ myspace profiles are good (eg: The Offspring). But apart from that, myspace profiles are graphic-heavy, useless and far too flashy.
Based on your post, I could assume that Orkut is somewhat going down the now-uncool Friendster‘s path. Friendster was my first ever social networking site and your descriptions are sooo Friendster: stupid ASCII “testimonials”, creepy people who beg you to be their friend, fake profile creation [a.k.a. Fakesters], idiotic bulletins, etc [but I still didn't delete my Friendster--holds a lot of memories, no matter how spammy things have recently become].
MySpace is definitely the worst, though. Friendster has been tossed to the sidewalk and is bleeding. Facebook is addictive though after they started those apps, it has become hopelessly cluttered. Multiply shows promise, though it still has to leave a dent in the social-networking world.
[Uh, why does my comment up there look odd? Anyway, I'm reposting it.]
Based on your post, I could assume that Orkut is somewhat going down the now-uncool Friendster’s path. Friendster was my first ever social networking site and your descriptions are _sooo_ Friendster: stupid ASCII “testimonials”, creepy people who beg you to be their friend, fake profile creation [a.k.a. Fakesters], idiotic bulletins, etc… I still didn’t delete my Friendster–it still holds a lot of memories, no matter how spammy things have recently become. However, I never use it anymore, though.
MySpace is definitely the worst, though. Friendster has been tossed to the sidewalk and is bleeding. Facebook is addictive though after they started those apps, it has become hopelessly cluttered. Multiply shows promise, though it still has to leave a dent in the social-networking world.
orkut has improved its service since this post. However, the people using it are the same, and most of my points have to do with people actions rather than site actions.
I haven’t been on facebook before it got its applications. And the applications totally bug the hell out of me. Compared to the other social networking sites I am still a member of, I’m quite happy with orkut.
Also, I don’t know why your first comment ended up blank. I’ll clean it up later (right now, I can’t access my site again, and I’m using a proxy).
ORKUT
First of all, you only see stupid things if you look for it.
It’s easy to block messages, scraps, people. You don’t get unwanted messages/spams unless you’re allowing it.
If you’re tired of fake profiles, just ignore their requests and keep people you actually know.
And if you don’t like Orkut- What are you doing there then?
It’s very easy to delete your account. The worst thing I see is that now anybody can create profiles without being invited, as it used to be.
MySpace is for jerks. Just hate it.
You see stupid things if they’re dancing in front of you and begging you to make a post about them
Also, despite all its flaws, like I’ve mentioned in a lot of comments, orkut is better than all the other social networking sites that I’ve tried.
As for fake profiles, the problem is not about me ignoring them. The problem is that someone creates a fake profile, adds all your friends and abuses them, and they think YOU did it.
Give my Facebook or Myspace, anyday. This site sounds like a bunch of kids playing “grownup”.
Orkut is just going less visited! :’( I hope Google will do some improvement to get it back up!
Orkut Team is really working hard now to make Orkut Stand out in the competiton. User Profiles has been updated and also looks so better than before.
OrkutWala.com provide you with access to a complete list of orkut scraps, orkut greetings, orkut glitter graphics, orkut images, messages and comments for your orkut scrapbook Please vist:http://www.orkutwala.com/
But… people hate change. You should set it up so everyone can change the theme to whatever they want. I’m sure people would appreciate that much more. No complaining then!
Yeah! I tried to visit the OrkutWala.com and I found it really nice! For sure I will always visit that site. Thanks! Minisite Design