Should Orkut be taken down?

[kalpik]

Well i think that Orkut is just a breach of privacy and waste of time. I know people who can spend the WHOLE day on Orkut! And yes, im talking about people working in a respectable company as software engineers! What do you guys think?

[QwertyManiac]

Unanimously YES! That feckin spamin irritating (s)crappy place...

[mediator]

ABsolutely NO!

[kalpik]

^^ Respect you opinion dude! But if you have time.. Give some justification for your choice too!

[The Outsider]

agree to kalpik, its hijacked by all the pakis

Orkut = Spam GoD

[mehulved]

Orkut has a lot of -ve's associated with it. But I will personally say no, orkut should not be taken down.
My reasons
1) I met a lot of school friends through orkut, whom I lost touch with and never thought I will meet so many of them again;
2) I can keep in constant touch with my college friends even though I have finished with my college now;
3) I waste less time on orkut then on yahoo messenger/IRC but can still keep in touch with friends;
4) I can talk to my friends on orkut so I can save a lot of my SMS cost and sometime calling cost cos I anyways incur same cost on my PC.
5) It let's you find your soulmate . Though not for me.
Well if you keep the point that people waste lot of time over orkut, now that's not the fault of orkut. It's like saying stop practising relegion cos lots of fighting happens today in the name of relegion. So should we go ahead and destroy all out temples, churches and mosques?
And if you care about privacy, don't give all the details. Well even without orkut google does know a lot about you. Nice bunch of personal intimate emails send from/to gmail. Big fat database from the pages crawled from your site/blog and world wide web in general. History of purchases via froogle and lots more.
In fact, I want to consider making a project, just for the heck of it, on 'Privacy - In the Reign of Google'

[kalpik]

Originally Posted by tech_your_future

It's like saying stop practising relegion cos lots of fighting happens today in the name of relegion. So should we go ahead and destroy all out temples, churches and mosques?

O.K. with me! Religion is one of the main factors india is still a "developing" nation.. Cuz people exploit each other on the basis of religeon. People are so superstitious in india.. I am an atheist, and a proud one at that! Anyway, enough of going off-topic (No offence meant to any person/religeon)

Originally Posted by tech_your_future

And if you care about privacy, don't give all the details. Well even without orkut google does know a lot about you. Nice bunch of personal intimate emails send from/to gmail. Big fat database from the pages crawled from your site/blog and world wide web in general. History of purchases via froogle and lots more.
In fact, I want to consider making a project, just for the heck of it, on 'Privacy - In the Reign of Google'

Im not concerned about google knowing about me, im concerned about "other" people knowing my details. I mean anyone with an orkut account can see my scrapbook and know a LOT about me!

[QwertyManiac]

Once you meet your friends why continue to exist and scrap there? Just add him in your fav IM right?

[Anand_RF]

I'm gonna say don't take it off. Yes, I hate orkut's "hey long time no scraps what yaar?" or "hey how are you?" scraps even if that person is currently talking to you via IM.
But I've managed to find several long lost friends of mine through the service, and think several others have too. So I don't think it should be banned, though that stupid scrapbook should be scrapped.

[kalpik]

^^ Good point.. The Scrap book is probably my only problem with orkut too

[drgrudge]

First to clarify my stand: I don't like Orkut at all. I really can't imagine how people spend their precious time there. I find that I hardly have any time for activities that I'm involved even though I don't have a full time job at the moment (gonna leave for Dubai shortly to work). Even in the Internet (assuming that you have only that as entertainment, work with or whatever) , there are so much to do productive.


Now coming to this discussions. Who are you to say Orkut to be taken down? Social networking sites like MySpace (Number 6 visited site in the whole net!), Orkut, Yahoo 360, Facebook are doing well. It earns big money to the guys who own them.

Again it's not the mistake of these social n/w sites that people wasting time. It's due to the various reasons that they don't want to get productive.

[mehulved]

Originally Posted by kalpik

Im not concerned about google knowing about me, im concerned about "other" people knowing my details. I mean anyone with an orkut account can see my scrapbook and know a LOT about me!

I am not saying that google knows a lot about you. I am saying is google indexes a lot about you. So people can find out a lot about you very easily.
__________

Originally Posted by QwertyManiac

Once you meet your friends why continue to exist and scrap there? Just add him in your fav IM right?

So, it wouldn't have been possible without orkut would it?
__________

Originally Posted by Anand_RF

I'm gonna say don't take it off. Yes, I hate orkut's "hey long time no scraps what yaar?" or "hey how are you?" scraps even if that person is currently talking to you via IM.
But I've managed to find several long lost friends of mine through the service, and think several others have too. So I don't think it should be banned, though that stupid scrapbook should be scrapped.

I have replied orkut on their feedback that they should incorporate 3 modes on the scrapbook - private, shared and friends.
In private only you and the person who posted can see it.
In friends, only common friends between both can see it.
And shared can be seen by everyone.
Why not everyone of you'll request orkut to incorporate this or some related feature, if many people demand it, they will be ready to incorporate it.
This is where you should request http://help.orkut.com/support/bin/request.py
EDIT: Just saw that Option to restrict scrapbook access, is in Top 5 list of suggestions, why not pust this and make it their top priority, so the privacy conecrns will be reduced manifold. Full privacy is not possible in the internet age.

[QwertyManiac]

Maybe not, but why continue to exist there was my doubt.

[mehulved]

Originally Posted by QwertyManiac

Maybe not, but why continue to exist there was my doubt.

Cos still there are lot of people who are not there on the friends list and I keep meeting someone or the other whom I have lost contact with, over time.

[Pathik]

i luv orkut

[mediator]

Hey guys, I see a lotta discussion is being going on regarding scraps and personal details. If u dont want ur details to be seen just dont fill them, who forced u?? Just fill ur name and upload a pic so that ur old friends get to recognise ya !
For the scrap thing, just dont use it. Use the personal messege thing of ORkut! Why is there so much discussion for this??

Neways yea, One point I agree on is that ur friend might be big mouthed to write all the secrets in ur scrap book causing some embarrasment! So I dont support the scrap thing personally!

But overall Orkut is good as @tech_for_future said it makes u reunite with old friends! Neways orkut is the only thing I do during exams. A break of 15 minutes during studies, some nice messeges and scraps really refreshes u between studies!

yeah! even I hate orkut but then I too found many lost friends( not to forget I found that kalpik's my school friend's friend. )

there are some ****ty people who just keep sending forwards as if I will really join their "so snd so..." community or forward the message to help a "person in really need" (yeah! the grammer sucks but thats what the subject lines read.

"scrapbook"=> my opinion doesn't differ

[drgrudge]

Why the hue and cry over scraps? If you feel someone is writing something which you don't like, you can always delete it.

Originally Posted by mediator

A break of 15 minutes during studies, some nice messeges and scraps really refreshes u between studies!

Ahh.. I never study much. But when I actually study, I visit Digit now and then (say ever 2 hrs or so) to take a break. I dunno as to how much that helped, but that's the way I spend the last 1-2 sems of my UG. Seeing that now, I won't recommend spending time here (or for that matter Orkut) as IMO it's waste. You'll be de-stressed, fresh, ok; but still it won't recharge you. Now, if I want to study (say when I do my MBA), then I'll visit Steve Pavlina's Blog or if I feel it's too "heavy" to read again and that too in front of a PC, then taking a 15-20 min nap or listening to FM/music. Orkut IMO will not do you good.

[iMav]

faaltu time waste hai yaar ..... and here discussing this we are indulging in nothing more than what ppl do on orkut ....

[~Phenom~]

orkut is addictive but its good sometimes, just like others said it helped me find old friends.

[mediator]

@drgrudge......yea I listen to mozart between breaks, but scraps really refresh u. Belive me specially when the messeges are from girls!
Neways there's nothing like slow,calm and soothing instrumental music between breaks!

one word


nahiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii iiiiii, what will happen to my free time, & my friends

orkut is good actully, i found my school friends there after long time, u can't say it's bad

& scrap book, well...there can be 2 things

1) Only u can see it

2) Only u & those friends who have logged in can see it & they can only see their own scraps

[QwertyManiac]

I dont know about orkut but this place definitely went down yesterday and today

[Apollo]

No. Those who don't like Orkut will do well to shun it.

Originally Posted by QwertyManiac

I dont know about orkut but this place definitely went down yesterday and today

Roger that. And they had quite a funny caption on, if you noticed.

[Third Eye]

Orkut is the worst thing of Google !

[VD17]

This is height of ridiculousness. If you dont like something SHUT THE F UP and ignore it. People wasting time on orkut do more "productive" work than people who go around discussing "Should Orkut be taken down". Who are you to take down orkut? Many people use it, let them. If you dont like it, dont use it.
And i for one dont think orkut should be taken down. Those people who waste time are making a personal choice. Orkut didnt mention in their Terms & Conditions that in order to be a member you HAVE to waste time here.
__________
btw, i dont like Pakistan.. can we blow it up, please?

__________
one more thing... we have had big words like "serious breach of privacy"... exactly... HOW??!!
people chose to put up the info. there... that network doesnt show or disclose anything that its not supposed to...

[iMav]

only the last part of ur comment i wud like to correct is that courts hav ruled that restricted info about users will be available for scrutiny .... all the rest crap u said is same as i hate schumi or i hate bill gates kinda stuff .....

hey mods this section is becoming more liek mouthshut.com

[VD17]

restricted info?
then that includes the stuff u put inother websites too.. like ebay.. and even webmails...
u know, the best way to counter an argument when u have absolutely nothing sensible to counter it with is to shun it as "crap" and similiar words.

[tuxfan]

Simply because people irritate sometimes by scrapping too much doesn't mean orkut should be taken down! Its a nice concept, but scrapping is over used (or misused)

Afterall social networking is not bad. And its a way to know about and learn about things from like minded people. Communities some time prove useful.

Should cars be banned just because some people speed and cause accidents?

[mediator]

100 % Agree with @VD17 aka Vinayak and @tuxfan aka ....... !
@tuxfan...Nice example bro!

Neways those who dont like the spamming thing of ORkut like messeges from communities, then just leave them! I have like 1000 such messeges from communties unread . There's an option in orkut not to acknowldge such messeges in email. I dont think spam exists for PM thing coz I never recieved such spam then!