Social Networking Watch: News on the Social Networking and Social Media Industry

In Brazil, Google Paves Facebook's Path To The Top

IB TIMES - Feb 15 - Facebook said its number of active users in Brazil had nearly tripled in 2011, finally placing it ahead of Google Inc's Orkut service as the No. 1 social network in the country. Much of the credit for that may belong to Google, analysts say. While a growing economy and easier credit gave Brazilians the ability to purchase computers and broadband connections, Google's Orkut gave them a reason to do so in the first place. "Until Orkut came along in 2004, Internet use in Brazil was stagnant," said analyst José Calazans of market research firm IBOPEnielsen in Sao Paulo. Now many of those people are moving to Facebook." Orkut's failure to innovate in line with users' expectations created an opportunity for Facebook to step in, offering new apps and games, as well as the ability to connect with people beyond Brazil.

by Asher Levine
See full article at IB Times

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Orkut App Arrives On iPhone, iPad

MASHABLE – Jan 19 – Google-owned Brazilian social networking site Orkut has finally gone mobile, announcing its app for the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. The app will allow users to post status updates, photos, and chat with others on the go. The announcement comes shortly after it was revealed that Facebook overtook Orkut as Brazil’s most popular social networking site in December. The app is now available for download in the Apple App Store.

by Samantha Murphy
See full article at Mashable

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Facebook In Brazil Finally Pushes Past Orkut

TECH CRUNCH – Jan 17 – comScore reports that in 2011, Brazilian Facebook users increased by nearly 24 million to surpass incumbent Orkut in December, reaching a total of 36.1 million monthly uniques. Orkut did see some growth in 2011, from 32.7 million to 34.4 million in Brazil, but still fall behind Facebook. Other social networks that saw growth in Brazil include Twitter, Latin America-focused social gaming company Vostu, Google+, Tumblr and LinkedIn. comScore also noted that woman are now spending more time on the site than man, and younger demographics are more likely to be on than older ones.

by Eric Eldon
See full article at Tech Crunch

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Google's Social Networking Site Orkut.com Turns 7

TNERD - Jan 25 – The social networking site Orkut was formally launched on January 22nd, 2004 by Google, and has since become one of the most popular social networking sites worldwide. Unfortunately for Orkut, Facebook now has a substantial lead as the most popular social networking site, with many Orkut users making the switch to Facebook. Orkut now sits at the number 4 spot, though Google likely has plans to revitalize the site in the near future. FULL ARTICLE @ NBC CHICAGO

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Farmville Helped Facebook Beat Orkut

DNA INDIA - Nov 16 - In May this year, Facebook beat Orkut as the top social networking destination in India. According to Vizisense,  which tracks web audience measurement in India, social media apps like Farmville, Mafia Wars, Cafe World have been the biggest contributors to Facebook’s success in India. Farmville clearly leads the pack and other apps are now following suit. Apps see the highest usage and the most time spent on Facebook. Men, specifically users aged between 15 and 24 years, spend 52% of their online time on apps. FULL ARTICLE @ DNA INDIA

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Facebook Growing Fast In Brazil, But Orkut Still Far Ahead

READ WRITE WEB - Oct 7 - Orkut never quite caught on in most countries, but it remains the most popular social network in Brazil. According to comScore, Orkut remains safely ahead of Facebook there, with 36M unique visitors last month. Facebook is only the third most popular social network in Brazil, but it is growing rapidly, and the site now attracts ~9M visitors per month - up from 1.5M a year ago. The second largest social networking site in Brazil is Windows Live, which reaches ~12.5M visitors. FULL ARTICLE @ READ WRITE WEB

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Facebook Overtakes Orkut In India: comScore

IBN LIVE - Aug 25 - India, one of the few countries where Orkut retained the top spot amongst social networks, now has more people logging on to Facebook, says comScore. Facebook grabbed the no.1 ranking in the social networking category for the first time in July with 20.9M visitors, up 179% versus year ago. Orkut registered a growth of only 16% in the same time period. FULL ARTICLE @ IBN LIVE

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Orkut Now Encouraging Users To Project Different Personas

READ WRITE WEB - Aug 24 - "You're not always the same person. Why should it be any different on the Web?" That's the title of the Orkut blog post announcing the changes that place emphasis on grouping your friends. Sometimes we want to use social media to talk about how much we're growing and learning at the new job, and sometimes we want to complain about work and talk about how wasty-face we're going to get tonight. Orkut now lets you create friend groups manually as well as "automagically" based on how you interact with specific friends. Orkut will also suggest new friends to add to your groups based on your social graph. FULL ARTICLE @ READ WRITE WEB

Mark Brooks: This is a long time coming. Both MySpace and Orkut are making use of the bad press Facebook is getting around privacy and sharing by launching differentiated features.

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Orkut About To Fall To Facebook In India

TECH CRUNCH - July 7 - While Orkut is much smaller than Facebook worldwide, it does dominate in at least two large countries: Brazil and India. But that soon may change. India looks like it is about to fall to Facebook. In May, 2010, Facebook attracted 18M unique visitors in India, compared to Orkut’s 19.7M (comScore). In the past year, Facebook grew 177% from 6.5M Indian visitors, compared to 35% growth for Orkut. When the June numbers come out, Facebook may very well surpass Orkut in that country. FULL ARTICLE @ TECH CRUNCH

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Orkut Beats Facebook In Indian Market

CIOL - Apr 8 - Facebook is the social networking leader in eight of the top 12 countries – Philippines, Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Vietnam – with the highest social networking penetration. India is the only country in this chart, where Orkut is ranked as the top social network. 50.8% of the total online population in the Asia-Pacific region visited a social network in February 2010, reaching a total of 240.3M visitors. In India 68.5% of the online population visited social networks. Not just the number of users, India also lags behind in terms of the time spent by the users on the sites. While the average minutes per visitor is 130.1, the average visits per visitor per month is 13. FULL ARTICLE @ CIOL

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No Friend Exports From Orkut To Facebook

TECH CRUNCH - Oct 1 - Facebook has been heavily promoting the fact that you can import your Orkut contacts via a special tool. As of today, that tool no longer works. 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? FULL ARTICLE @ TECH CRUNCH

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Facebook Looks To End Orkut’s Hold On Brazil

MASHABLE - Sep 30 - Facebook is now the most popular social network in most of Europe, with strong growth in Asia and South America too. But in Brazil Orkut remains one of the most popular sites overall in the country (#2 according to Alexa; Facebook is #25). Now, Facebook islaunching a tool to help users find their Orkut friends that are already on Facebook. The feature is similar to the contact importer that Facebook offers US users that allow them to find Gmail, AIM, and Windows Live Messenger contacts that are already on the social network. FULL ARTICLE @ MASHABLE

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Battle Of Social Networks

VENTURE BEAT -- Sep 14 -- Orkut still dominates the Brazilian market: it attracted 22.7M unique visitors last month. The next closest competitor, Windows Live Profile, brought in had 8M visitors, according to Comscore. Facebook comes in at eighth place with 1.3M. Facebook’s claiming 100-200k new users a month at the moment. Facebook surpassed Orkut as the leader in Latin America as a whole in Feb '09. Facebook attracted 33.6M unique visitors compared to Orkut’s 24M in July. FULL ARTICLE @ VENTURE BEAT

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Facebook Gaining On Orkut

ONLINE MEDIA DAILY -- July 2 -- Facebook is making inroads in Brazil and India -- countries where Orkut is the leading social network. The number of Facebook users in the two countries has doubled in the last two months. Facebook now has more than 1m users in Brazil and 3.2m in India. Orkut has 22.5m users in Brazil and 14.5m in India as of May, according to comScore. But unlike Facebook, Orkut has seen its growth slow in those countries in recent months so it could just be a matter of time before Facebook catches up. FULL ARTICLE @ MEDIA POST

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Facebook Looks To India

BUSINESS WEEK -- June 16 -- Facebook is now pushing hard to win over Indians by adding Hindi and five other local languages. That takes the number of languages officially supported by Facebook to 57, with several dozen more in the works. The company hopes the six new Indian languages (Bengali, Hindi, Malayalam, Punjabi, Tamil, and Telugu) will help close the gap between it and Orkut. However, most Indians who use social networks are urban educated youth, for whom English is almost a native tongue. FULL ARTICLE @ BUSINESS WEEK

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Evolution Of Google's Orkut

CIOL -- Mar 2 -- Orkut which kicked off as just a 20% time project of Orkut Büyükkökten, its creator, has come to be known, as the world’s most popular social network. 17+% of Orkut members are Indians, making India the second largest nation on its network. According to Comscore, in India, Orkut was the most visited social network in Dec '08 with ~12.8m visitors, an increase of 81%  YOY. FULL ARTICLE @ CIOL

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Orkut Introduces Automatic Filter For Sexual Content NY

IDG NEWS SERVICE -- Oct 23 -- Orkut has introduced what it describes as a "safety filter" that automatically filters out adult content such as sexually suggestive phrases or images. The filter has been introduced in India, and is turned on by default for users in the country. Google plans to introduce it in other countries in the next few weeks, said Rahul Kulkarni, product manager at Google India, on Thursday. FULL ARTICLE @ NY TIMES

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Mixi Tops Facebook And MySpace

BUSINESS WEEK -- Aug 26 -- Mixi may not have the global reach of social networking giants Facebook and MySpace, but in Japan it's a king. The Tokyo company had 15m users as of June, a 40% gain from 10.7m a year earlier. In June, Mixi accounted for 12.4m, or 41%, of the 31m unique visitors for all SNS in Japan, according to comScore. MySpace was a distant second, with 1.2m visitors, followed by Orkut's 638,000 and Facebook's 538,000. As Mixi draws more clicks, its clout with online advertisers grows. That's important for Mixi because online ads account for 85% of its $92m in annual revenues. Japan's Internet ad spending is set to rise 20%, to $5 billion, this year, according to Dentsu Communications Institut. By 2011, the figure could top $6.9 billion.FULL ARTICLE @ BUSINESS WEEK

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