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
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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TECH CRUNCH -- Aug 12 -- Even though Facebook is now the largest social network
in the world,—with 132m unique visitors in June—it is also still
the fastest growing. According to figures compiled by comScore, Facebook's
visitor growth is up 153% on an annual basis. This compares to anemic 3% growth
for MySpace. Other social networks showing strong global growth include Hi5
(100 %) and Friendster (50%), Orkut and Bebo fall in at 41% and 32% growth,
respectively. FULL ARTICLE @ TECH CRUNCH
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BUSINESS WEEK -- July 15 -- In June, Facebook claimed 37.4m unique visitors, up from 35.6m in May. Year over year, Facebook saw its uniques rise 34%, up from 27.9m last June. By contrast, the total number of Americans visiting SNS grew 6% over the previous June to 189.9m. Meanwhile, MySpace only saw 3% annual growth in its visitors, rising to 72.8m from 70.5m. Among the other top social networking sites, LinkedIn and Orkut are seeing the highest growth rates. LinkedIn more than doubled its U.S. audience, hitting 4.1m users in June, up from 1.7m the previous June. And Orkut also doubled in size, reaching 1.2m users, up from 588 thousand the previous June. FULL ARTICLE @ BUSINESS WEEK
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MASHABLE -- June 27 -- Genealogy
tool Familybuilder (formerly known as iFamily), has reached an
important milestone - 16m profiles built within its network.
Having launched a year ago today as a Facebook application,
Familybuilder has spread to a number of other networks like Bebo and
Orkut. FULL ARTICLE @ MASHABLE
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TECH CRUNCH -- June 23 -- Facebook, Bebo and LinkedIn are worth $15 billion, $850 million and $1
billion, respectively. The last valuation of MySpace was
just $580 million, back in 2005 when it was acquired by News Corp. An effective way
to value SNS is based on the average Internet advertising
spend per person in the country they live in. MySpace would be
by far the most valuable social network based on available data. A
competitor like Orkut is worth only 1/20th of MySpace, even though it
has nearly 1/4 the number of users. Second place Facebook has just 75% of the value of MySpace
(even though it now has more users), followed by Bebo (26% of MySpace
value), Hi5 and Amebio. LinkedIn comes in at no. 11, at 6% of MySpace's
value. FULL ARTICLE @ TECH CRUNCH
Mark Brooks: LinkedIn has a more valuable audience per user. Orkut and Friendster and others are sleepers. They have significant foreign audiences (Brazil and Phillipines, respectively) where the online ad markets are still emerging.
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PR NEWSWIRE -- June 16 -- 123Greetings.com launched a new e-card
application for Orkut.com. The application provides access to 20,000
free cards. Users will be able to see what cards other people in their
network have sent and send as many e-cards as they like. The
"123Greetings Cards" application is also live on Bebo, Facebook,
MySpace and Friendster. FULL ARTICLE @ THE EARTH TIMES
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BUSINESS WIRE -- May 6 -- Frengo, the provider of social mobile
services, announced the availability of a suite of applications
that run on top of and across Facebook, MySpace, hi5, Orkut and Bebo.
Frengo focuses on social applications that are fun, engaging,
entertaining and available anytime and anywhere – from a Web enabled PC
or mobile phone. FULL ARTICLE @ THE EARTH TIMES
EXPRESS COMPUTER ONLINE -- Mar 14 -- Social networks are a good tool to tap passive candidates who are not actively looking for a job. Today many job seekers and recruiters in India are making use of sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Orkut, Big Adda, Hi5, Brijj, Yaari, Fropper, Ryze, Xing. According to Rajaram Agarwal, MD of TalentAhead India, getting senior and experienced people is quite difficult. "Very few senior employees are using SN; it is mostly accessed by the younger generation." FULL ARTICLE @ EXPRESS COMPUTER ONLINE
MARKETING WEEK -- Feb 18 -- The Indian Government arrested several
doctors alleged to be using Facebook and Orkut as a source of procuring
kidneys online. In the past, ebay was criticised when a human kidney
came up for sale on the website in 1999. The bidding for the kidney
started at $25,000 and nearly reached $6m before ebay stepped in to
stop the auction. The seriousness of the ebay bid at the time was not
known, but existing organ trafficking from places such as India is
known to provide illegal organs at much lower cost. FULL ARTICLE @ MARKETING WEEK
TECH CRUNCH -- Feb 7 -- Either Google or MySpace is about to announce a big $1 billion to $1.5 billion acquisition in the social space. There is a long history of rumors surrounding Bebo as an acquisition target that turned out to be false or never panned out. The last one was in May 2007, when Yahoo supposedly wanted to buy it for $1 billion. Google already owns Orkut, one of the biggest social networks globally, especially in Latin America. According to comScore, Bebo had 21 million unique visitors worldwide in December, 2007, with about 4 million in the U.S. Orkut had 25 million worldwide unique visitors. So Google would nearly double its social networking market share. Bebo could help MySpace with its global expansion, particularly in markets like the UK, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand, where it is weak. Securing the No. 1 spot in each international market is the key to dominating them. FULL ARTICLE @ TECH CRUNCH
WEBPRONEWS -- Jan 3 -- Social networks are set to become targets of cyber criminals in the coming year according to security experts. People are willing to share personal information and become more vulnerable to attacks. Brazilian users of Google's Orkut were subjected to an attack by a worm that attempted to steal bank account information. FULL ARTICLE @ WEBPRONEWS
EWEEK -- Dec 20 -- Orkut is hit by a fast moving worm that is attacking members of a Portuguese-language community. According to McAfee researcher Vinay Mahadik, the worm is abusing the ability to add JavaScript content to Orkut Scrapbook entries, a feature that was only recently introduced by Google. This is the second major worm attack to take aim at a popular social network. In October 2005, the Samy worm used cross-site scripting techniques to spread through MySpace, infecting more than a million users in less than a day. FULL ARTICLE @ EWEEK
THE NEW YORK TIMES -- Nov 4 -- Facebook looked to be on its way to owning the Social Networking market just a week ago, particularly when Microsoft announced it's $240 million investment. Then the sleeping giant Google announced OpenSocial, a platform that attempts to adopt a single set of software standards for the widgets that can add a social-networking layer to all websites. In just a week, MySpace, Bebo, LinkedIn, Friendster, SixApart, Hi5, Ning, SalesForce.com and Google's own Orkut have agreed to partner. Suddenly, where many programmers were only making widgets for Facebook, the OpenSocial standard will make their widget able to be easily used by thousands of sites. How will Facebook react? FULL ARTICLE @ THE NEW YORK TIMES
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL -- Oct 19 -- Orkut, Google's social-networking site which is extremely popular in Brazil and one of the 10 most popular sites in that country, is under fire by Brazilian authorities for it's advertising practices. Brazilian authorities recently arrested the head of Google's San Paulo office (a Google affiliate) on contempt charges. Brazilian prosecutors are demanding Google turn over data, partially so prosecutors may determine if Orkut is in violation of Brazil's child pornography and hate speech laws. FULL ARTICLE @ THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL -- Oct 3 -- A Brazilian non-profit, SaferNet, alleged Google’s Orkut contained child pornography. Google has faced legal challenges in Brazil and prosecutors threaten heavy fines. In August, Google removed ads from Orkut. According to comScore Inc., 25 million people visited Orkut in August, ranking it 76th world-wide. FULL ARTICLE @ THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA -- Sep 21 -- Online dating, matrimonial, and social networking sites are gaining prominence in India. 51% of online urban Indians use dating sites, 48% frequent matrimonial sites, and 44% belong to the social networking site Orkut. 37% of all Indian internet users undertake both online matrimonial and dating/friendship activities, up from 9% last year. FULL ARTICLE @ PRESS TRUST OF INDIA
This post also appears on OnlinePersonalsWatch.
GOOGLE BLOGOSCOPED -- Aug 24 -- Yesterday, Google announced they’ll be rolling out a new look for their social network Orkut. A preliminary peek at the new design reveals rounded edges, more sophisticated fonts, and fresher color tones. The look is a little cleaner and features are better integrated. FULL ARTICLE @ GOOGLE BLOGOSCOPED
TECH CRUNCH -- Aug 24 -- In the U.S., social networking site Orkut has 425 million monthly page views compared to 15 billion for Facebook. But, worldwide, Orkut has 38 billion monthly page views compared to Facebook’s 31 billion. Only MySpace has more page views. Both comScore and Alexa agree Orkut is bigger than Facebook in page views. FULL ARTICLE @ TECH CRUNCH
ARABIAN BUSINESS -- July 11 -- Maktoob.com and faye3.com have teamed up to develop an Arab social networking site, according to a local newspaper report. The two sites are working on a joint initiative aimed at providing a service that will allow Arab communities to link up online and share contacts. The initiative comes shortly after Etisalat banned social networking site Orkut.com upon orders from the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA). FULL ARTICLE @ ARABIAN BUSINESS
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