Google’s social network, Orkut, has been overlooked by most Americans and Europeans, but is hugely popular in Brazil and India. The Orkut project was born as a result of Google’s 20% policy, which allows employees to spend 20% of their time developing their own ideas. One chap decided Google needed a better social network, so built Orkut with the help of his fellow Googlers.
Until now Orkut has been an advert free zone, but in recent weeks we have noticed that Google are now showing Adsense ads on Orkut. They have finally decided it is time to monetize Orkut. The Orkut community does seem to be growing still, but is nowhere near MySpace and Facebook. However, it does appeal to many Indians and Brazilians. One Brazilian community, Brasil, has 1.37 million members alone. This is a major potential revenue source for Google that was previously untapped. At its heaight, the Brazilian community Eu Amo A Minha Mãe! had over 3 million members. Other large communities are David Beckham, with 108,000 members. These communities make most web forums look like very small fish.
Although forums are one of the worse revenue generators online, the sheer numbers of people that use Orkut will mean that Google will boost its income.
This is the first I have heard of that site, I’ll have to check it out.
Orkut is in some ways a very different sort of social networking site. Unlike most that have strict spam rules, Orkut is in many ways anything goes as far as link dropping is concerned. Although owned by Google, all the communities are built and maintained by the users, and most moderators tolerate link drops. Of course, there is no SEO advantage to posting there, and even a good post can quickly get buried under a stack of fluff posts. But it is a nice safe environment.