Orkut Term Paper

8/9/2019 Orkut Term Paper

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Why Indians Love Orkut?

Consumer Behavior

Term Paper

On


By

Menta Sravan PGP/10/14

For Prof. Anand Unnithan

Indian Institute of Management, Kozhikode

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6 August, 2007


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Table of Contents

1. Introduction 3

2. Features of Orkut 5

3. My Experience With Orkut 9

4. Why Is Brazil Hooked To Orkut? 10

5. Why Is India Fascinated With Orkut? 11

6. Conclustion 16

2

References 17


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1. Introduction

Social Networking

A social network is a structure that is built by relationships such as friendships, ideas,

kinship, trade, sexual relations, values etc. The first social networking website was

Classmates introduced in 1995. The internet space saw the entry of several social

networking websites in the next few years. Social networking on web became extremely

powerful phenomenon when MySpace began to receive more page views than Google.

There are over 200 social networking websites available on internet today. The model

works is very similar in most social networking website, a set of initial users send invites to

their personal friends to join the website. The new members repeat the process and the

network grows over a period of time. Social networking websites is not just about

interacting with people living far-away, many of the discussions and chats are with people

who live and work near-by.

Background

Orkut is a social networking website launched by Google on 17 November 2002. It was

the brainchild of Orkut Buyukkokten a Turkish software engineer. He developed it as anindependent project while working at Google. Orkut originally was elite as one could join

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the group only by invitation. However since October 2006, Orkut permits joining without

invitation. Orkut has become a phenomenon which has caught the fancy of a large number

of people across the globe. Within 18 months of launch, Orkut membership surpassed

1million. By September 2004, the number of members increased to 2 million and the total

number of members using Orkut as on date is over 60 million.

Orkut took Brazil and India by a wave. The popularity of the website in these two

countries is unusually much higher compared to the usage of MySpace, Friendster, LinkedIn

and HiFi.

Methodology Of Paper

To understand Orkut and its phenomenon better, I have read several blogs and articles on

the website. I have interviewed several friends of mine regarding their usage and the

reasons behind Orkuts popularity.

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2. Features of Orkut

Orkut offers several features which makes it different from other social networking

websites.

How does one join orkut? - A user joins Orkut by creating his profile with personal

details, hobbies, interests, photo etc. A user has the option to decide the visibility of the

details according to the following classifications Friends, Friends of Friends, & Everyone.

Adding Friends Once a member joins Orkut he can begin friends to his list. The number

keeps growing when one receives add invitation from others. Orkut with its mutual friends,

communities and search options helps a member find old friends on the web easily.

Scrapping Scrapping a feature which has become the lifeline of Orkut and in many

ways behind its phenomenal growth in membership. Scrapping allows a user to leave

offline messages for a friend. The speciality of scraps is everybody who visits the users

profile can read the scraps written by others for the user.

Communities There are over a million communities on Orkut which bring users with

mutual interests together. Users can ask questions, post events, conduct polls, and play

games. There communities almost on everything from coffee to vadapav, roses to tulips,

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cats to dogs etc. Users can add themselves to the various communities available on Orkut

to express their interests and affinities. Indians find a special mention for the thousands of

communities dedicated to film stars, which range from superstar to powerstar, I love

Raveen to I hate Ekta etc.

Testimonials Users can write testimonials for their friends which can be viewed by

everybody visiting the users profile. Testimonials are great medium to get know a new

friend on Orkut.

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Birthdays The upcoming birthdays of friends are available on the Users main page.

This has become a popular tool for tracking birthdays and wishing friends. The need for

keeping a separate birthday reminder is eliminated for regular Orkut users.

Photos & Videos Users can upload photos and videos which are available for all

visitors to the users profile. This section has become extremely popular for members to

display snaps and moments from their current happening to friends.

Open Forum Unlike MySpace in Orkut one can view the profiles of users not available

on his network. This has been one of the key drivers of Orkuts popularity.

Profile Count Profile count on the main page helps one know how many people visitedthe webpage. The count is provided for previous day, week, month and till date.

Crush List One can add friends as crushes and the same would be known to both of

them if they have both added each other as crushes.

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Fans One can add himself/herself as a fan to his/her friends. Members can also rate

their friends as cool, sexy and trustworthy. As can be seen below Jayesh has 79 fans and

also has ratings of trustworthy, cool and sexy by friends.

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3. My Experience With Orkut

I first joined Orkut in October 2003. However I did not explore the website beyond

accepting the invitation. The website was becoming extremely popular among my friends

and colleagues. I finally began using Orkut in June 2005 and began adding friends

rapidly. I began scrapping heavily and was becoming addicted to the Orkut culture. It

was a nice experience tracking old friends and reading about their current lives in their

scrap books. One can get a quick update of old friends in a short time by going through

their scrap book, communities and photos. These were the features that had me tied to the

website for a long time. I spend long hours tracking down old friends, scrapping and

reading their scrapbooks.

However as my schedule became hectice my usage of Orkut began to drop. The tracking

of old friends and replying to scraps immediately were no longer a priority. I was not

taking time out of schedule to find out what my friends were up to on Orkut. Today I log

into Orkut once in 10 days and just reply to the few scraps. I hardly venture beyond my

scrap book. My scrap count, friends count, and fans all move at a snails pace.

However many friends around me continue to be heavily addicted to Orkut. I know many

who would be having very limited free time continue to spend an inordinate amount oftime on Orkut. Unusually Orkut has become extremely popular in Brazil and India. Brazil

was the first nation to be totally fascinated with Orkut. Intial Orkut users used to receive

numerous friend invitations from strangers belonging to Brazil. India was the other nation

that flooded Orkut with members. What fascinated the people in these two countries living

so far-apart?

What keeps the novelty of Orkut going after several months of scrapping? What makes

people come back to Orkut after a days work? What does Orkut offer for keeping intouch with friends which email/chat does not offer? Does Orkut pander to some deep

seated desires in the online world not available in the real world? Does active social life

on Orkut compensate for lack-luster life in real world? Does Orkut scrap count, friend

count, fans and testimonials build social confidence?

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4. Why Is Brazil Hooked To Orkut?

Orkut growth is well characterized by its astounding popularity among Brazilians. There

are over 100, 000 Brazilians living in Japan who are connect through Orkut. Some of the

reasons which have been attributed for popularity of Orkut,

Community Orientation Brazilians are extremely community oriented and express their

identity through communities. Social networking in Orkut immediately caught on in Brazil

because of its relevance to their inherent values. There is more than a coolness factor

associated with social networking on Orkut.

Pre-qualifying Friends Brazilians who use Orkut belong to upper-echelon of the society.

They are wary to of inviting new friends to join their circle. Orkuts pre-qualifying allows

them to choose their friends.

Mobility Many Brazilians have been migrating in the last few years. Orkut helps them

keep in touch with their friends without mass mailers. A large number of Brazilians access

Orkut from cyber cafes. The access anytime anywhere added to the popularity in the

initial days.

Yakut - Orkut sounds like Yakult or iogurte (yogurt). Yakult is the Brazilian version of the

popular Japanese Yakult yogurt drink. Everyone drinks it in Brazil when theyre kids. There

is a totally unintentional instant association between the words Orkut, Iogurte and Yakut in

Brazil.

Pronunciation The name Orkut is extremely easy to pronounce in Portuguese. The same

is not applicable for names like MySpace and Friendster.com. These names lose their

meaning when translated to P ortuguese.

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Lack of Advertising The average Brazilians life is flooded with advertisements from bill

boards, advertisement, radio infomericials, cars with loudspeakers driving around

advertising etc. Orkuts zero advertisement is also one of the reasons for its growing

popularity.


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5. Why Is India Fascinated With Orkut?

In India the Orkut story began way back in 2003 and the popularity of the social

networking website grew at a phenomenal pace. Today India contributes 9% of Orkuts

total membership which translates into 6 million Indians connected through a single social

networking website. Orkut means different things to different people in India. However

the usage and popularity of Orkut can be grouped under few categories.

One of the prime reasons which people attribute for usage of Orkut is staying connected

with friends. The same can be achieved by gmail and gtalk also. However Orkut gives a

host of other features which makes it a more convenient tool compared to email &

messenger. The reasons for popularity of Orkut go beyond the obvious of social

networking with friends.

Stay Connected

Orkuts ability to track old friends and classmates makes it dear for most users. The built in

search facilities, communities and mutual friends list help users easily track friends. The

advantage of Orkut is one can leave offline messages for a friend. A chat message can

disturb a person at work and at the same time it is not convenient for composing emails for1 line messages. Orkut scraps are read at leisure without getting disturbed and easy to

message. Orkut keeps everybody connected no matter where they live or work. It doesnt

matter if a friend changes his mobile number or email address, all of it will be updated on

his/her profile. A message to All Orkut Friends with any news ensures it reaches their

current email addresses. Today we regularly receive wedding invitations sent to All Orkut

Friends with the words Please consider this as personal invitation.

Peek Into Others Lives

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Orkuts scrapbook feature is a public forum available for all users to read anothers

messages. A quick perusal of a friends scraps helps one get a first-hand update of the

current happening in his/her life. This ensures the message one leaves for a friend are

relevant. Many users wander through other peoples scrapbooks to ensure they are not


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missing out on the action in anybodys lives. Orkut has transformed the way people keep

in touch with everybodys lives. Another interesting psychological aspect being played out

is the curiosity a person has about the happenings in anothers life. Orkut helps by

allowing a peek into anothers life without too much effort.

One can regularly hear the conversations such as He is getting engaged, I saw it on the

scrapbook. I have myself been surprised so many times with such updates of old friends

and classmates. I recently learnt of an old friends wedding when I happened to visit his

scrapbook while wandering through Orkut. I immediately emailed him a congratulatory

note. This would not have been possible in the old days with just emails and messengers

which do not connect you to a friend absent on the contacts list.

The Social Space

Orkut is styled in a fashion ones profile can act as a social space on the web and as a

self styled blog. Many Indians would love to have their web-space on internet however do

not have the time or skills to maintain a blog. Orkut gives them an easy gateway to

achieve this goal by creating their profile on the website. Orkut with its features of About

Me, passions, interests, likes, dislikes, dream date, photos and videos helps a member

create a social identity of himself/herself on web. The bigger advantage of Orkut space

is its immediately available for all friends to view at regular intervals. A blog does not

offer this advantage as many friends and acquaintances would not even be aware of the

blogs existence.

Users spend considerable amount of time to update the profile with their current

happenings, photos and videos. Many change their profile picture regularly and some

even go the extent of renaming their profiles with current happening in their lives. One of

the blogs which I recently read had a humorous account of the typical desi profile onOrkut. My opinion about Indian Orkut profiles is not very different from the view

expressed by this writer. Here is a brief account of the humorous write-up from the blog,

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Status As Profile Name Indians love to express the latest happening in their lives by

renaming their profiles. It is common to find profile names like Shravan In Chicago...,

Job At SAPYippee... etc.

The 6 Photos Phenomena There are at least 6 photos displaying various aspects of ones

life. A photo of convocation/graduation (I am educated), a photo in a pub (I am modern),

a photo in traditional clothes at a temple (I am still Indian), a photo in a large group (I am

popular), a photo with opposite sex (I am straight) and a photo in west (Yes, I have

traveled abroad too).

Social Status

Orkut helps one project an active social life and network with the features such as friend

count, scrap count and fans. Many users of Orkut add friends randomly to increase theirfriend count. One can easily find members on Orkut with friends count over 500 and

above. It is not humanly possible to keep in touch with so many friends unless somebody

makes Orkut scrapping their livelihood. This wide-spread phenomenon can be attributed

to members desire to project a super popular image of themselves.

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WhyIndians Love

Orkut

SocialSpace

SocialStatus

StayingConnected

StayingConnected

Peek IntoOthers Lives

Gateway toSocial Life

Search forCompanion

CommunitiesRecruitment &Job Openings


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Large scrap counts are another fad among the regular users. Many aspire to be part of

the 5000+ scraps and 10000+ scraps clubs and indulge in daily scrapping targets to

sooner achieve the status. It makes one wonder why invest so much time in increasing scrap

counts if the objective of using Orkut is staying connected. A large scrap count in many

ways helps massage ones ego and assure one self he/she is popular among friends.

Fans is another feature of Orkut which people are extremely proud of in their profile. The

number of fans any member has is available to all users to see. Many Orkuters take up

great pains to increase their fan count. One of the most popular strategies adopted is to

add oneself to everybody in the friend list as a fan and hope they return the favor. I

know of a few friends who have asked me to return the favor. Also many have pointed

out to me the large number of fans they have on Orkut for no specific reason.

Gateway To Social Life

There many people who are extremely shy and subdued in real life but extremely active

on Orkut. A quick look at their scrap book would make you believe in the multiple

personality syndrome. Orkut is an easy gateway to alternate social life on the web by

quickly building up friends and a social identity. People can be extremely bold with their

own classmates and friends on Orkut with whom they are not able to in real life. Orkut

makes one forget their fallacies and build an image which they desire to display to the

society.

Search For Companion

Orkut is flooded with wannabe Indians who scrap women on Orkut requesting friendship.

The number of such people grows by the day on Orkut and has become a cause of

concern among women. There is another breed of women who take advantage of thisphenomenon by uploading photographs of good looking friends etc. Invariably they

receive large number of friend requests from men and the women accept all the invitations

to display an active social life. One of my friends pointed out three users using the same

photo in their profiles and with disproportionate number of men as friends.

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Fractionalization of Communities

Indians have a great affinity for communities and take great pride in belonging to various

communities. We should be given special credit for creation of thousands of communities

on Orkut. The communities originally were created for people with similar interests to

share their ideas and thoughts. However they have slow and steadily evolved into

fractionalization of communities such as

India Mumbai Thane Vasant Vihar Eden Woods

Today there are several hate communities on Orkut and they are growing by the day.

Something else which is becoming popular in communities is match making in caste

communities. A Konkani community for instance is flooded with posts regarding match

making and proposals. Many women have begun to unsubscribe from such communities to

avoid the unsolicited proposals.

Recruitment & Job Openings

Recruitment and job openings have slowly found their way into Orkut. With consultants

posting jobs among various communities of Orkut, many have begun to switch jobs through

this avenue. A recent Business Standard article featured regarding the growing usage of

social networking websites for recruitment and job openings. Some software communities

have membership of thousands of IT engineers, a single post can reach a wider target

audience than many advertisements and email chains.

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6. Conclusion

Orkut is great medium for staying connected with friends and is one of the most popular

social networking websites. However its usage and popularity can be attributed to

reasons beyond the obvious. Some of the underlying reasons have been explained in brief

in the paper however there might be many more to be explored in detail. Irrespective of

the reasons for popularity, one can concur Google has created a great application for

staying in touch with friends.

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References

1. Wikipedia Social Networking

2. Wikipedia Orkut

3. Future of Orkut by Social Community

4. Orkut Perils? By Punit Lodaya

5. Why Users Love Orkut by Gene Liebel

6. Why Brazil Loves Orkut by Loren Baker

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