The allegations made by What should Orkut do? about Orkut popularity and the reason it’s not popular in the U.S. anymore have been confirmed by the renowned Forbes magazine. The article is very analytical and shows it’s possible to make a better Orkut with high profits to the company (we hope Google CEO has read Forbes’ article).
Here goes some pieces of the article:
"Orkut’s Brazilians and other foreign users could also be a significant source of revenue, argues Greg Sterling, a consultant with Sterling Market Research. "If you’ve got the ad coverage, an international user is as valuable as anyone," he says."
The reason Google must invest efforts in quality improvement initiatives on Orkut and start to places ads on communities and profiles. Ads must be discreet and harmonic with the design. It’s easier now the new Orkut look is designed in white. Fake profiles and evil communities must be deleted as well as users involved with these activities must be banned from the website and arrested in case they’re involved with criminal activities.
"[...]Google, which won’t disclose Orkut’s revenue numbers, has recently been putting more of its massive resources behind the site. On top of this week’s redesign, the company last year sponsored a social networking project at Carnegie Mellon to develop a tool meant to improve Orkut’s domestic popularity. The result was Socialstream, a prototype for a site that allows users to post text and multimedia content to a single page, then syndicate that content to any social network where they have a profile."
It means Google has finally realized Orkut has potential, that’s why the company has redesigned the website to look likes more professional than that baby blue thing. Now Orkut must work on privacy and security.
Silicon Valley: one of the wonders of capitalism. The anti-globalization activists forget internet technologies (which they use to spread their demagogy against globalization) would never be developed in another economic system.
"Until now, Orkut has been an also-ran in the U.S. because it’s been neglected by Google," Sterling says. "But with just a few tweaks and redesigns, and in combination with all of Google’s services, it has the potential to really differentiate itself from MySpace and Facebook."
The confirmation about the reasons why Orkut has been kicked out of the United States of America just like we allegated on last edition. It’s an incontestable evidence that Google will be recompensed with profits by improving Orkut. When it happens everyone will realize capitalism is a fair system that recognizes those who work and have great ideas for making a difference.
In a great article regarding to Social networking site tops in London, Toronto form Reuters Life!, It shows London and Toronto have the highest number of Facebook users.
TORONTO (Reuters Life!) - It could be due the climate, the large number of students or the ethnic mix of the people who live there, but whatever the reason London and Toronto have the highest number of Facebook users.
The social networking Web site, which began in a dorm room at Harvard University in 2004 for students, says it has more than 41 million active users. Its impressive growth has made it an Internet and social phenomenon.
According to media reports, Toronto was top of the Facebook world as late as the end of June, but London surged ahead over the summer.
Facebook said it does not keep statistics on networks, but a look through the regional areas in the top three countries -- the United States, Canada and Great Britain -- shows that London had 1,159,185 users, while Toronto was a close second with 836,605.
Experts agree that it's hard to explain why certain social communities take off and others don't, but speculate on possible factors.
"Historically speaking, the harsher the climate and the more dispersed the population, the more telecommunication has had a major influence in shaping the culture," said Mark Federman, a researcher at the University of Toronto.
"There has always been a greater per capita early adoption of communication technologies in Canada compared to the USA and a similar situation exists in Northern Europe," he added in an email interview.
Federman also believes the penetration of high speed Internet access in the United States, even in urban areas, is lower than in Toronto or in Europe.
Like London, Toronto is the home of various universities and about half a dozen community colleges, so there is a large population of "demographically-right" potential users, according to Federman.
Leslie Chan, a social science lecturer at the University of Toronto, agrees.
"University students in that regard are big users...there are a lot of students (in Toronto) and when you add them all up, when these students link up to friends and relatives outside -- it's kind of a snowball effect."
Federman added that Toronto's strong ethnic mix may also mean a greater likelihood for people wanting to connect with others all over the world. The relative affluence of the city also means a larger percentage of the population has access to high-speed internet.
"I think that certain of the factors might equally apply to London, or any large urban area," Federman added.
Half of users of Facebook, which is a growing favorite with the 25 and up age group, make daily visits to the site.
Membership in the New York, Los Angeles and Chicago regional networks combined is about 918,168, while Washington D.C., boasts 272,723 people on its network.
Dissecting Facebook by numbers is not very straightforward. Users can join multiple networks or chose not to associate themselves with any network. But the figures are significant enough for researchers to be interested in how social communities evolve and expand.
Chan said that he is now seeing colleagues look at these types of questions as serious research, but added: "We don't have the answers yet."