On an invitation to use the new Orkut and after reviewing it for last 7 days, I have noticed many advantages and disadvantages of this new User Interface (UI). The new UI has focused more on the home and profile pages of the users, even though one of the unique 
features of Orkut has been its more than 100 million communities, which I feel, have been largely ignored in this newer version. Since Orkutheroes.com focuses and highlights the activities and achievements of various online groups and communities, I have decided to write this article to focus on the threat to these active communities through the new UI of Orkut.
Orkut’s new look has many exciting features for user profile section which have been reviewed in my last article here, like posting notifications on profile where friends can comment turning it to a small thread type discussion, managing friends and communities from profile page, approving friend’s requests became easy and sharing photo album etc.
The new user profile is designed in such a fashion that it will keep user busier in his/her profile than any other place on Orkut. From any other place I mean Orkut communities, to say it more specifically I would like to give an example. I am a very active member of Indian Parenting community where I used to take part in various discussions related to parenting with fellow members mostly parents; among those active members of parenting community I have some members in my friend list too. To test out my idea and usability of the new UI, I wrote a notification on my profile page “ Which is the best packed food for one year old child?” and in few minutes I received 4-5 comments from those people who are active member of Indian Parenting community, I didn’t visit the community but I wrote a query on my own profile notification, it solved my purpose with less effort so what’s the use of community when I can create as many threads I want in my profile and discuss with friends of same interest ? Then how often will I visit all those favorite communities of mine?
New Orkut notification on user’s profile is actually a style of conveying short messages to your friends, messages can be anything and replies will come from concerned and similar minded persons, all those you have added in your friend’s list. People who love discussions in forums sometimes don’t like being moderated by owners or moderators of the community, but notifications also solve this hindrance of being ruled because here, you are the ruler of your own thread.
On the other hand Orkut community fans are disappointed by new Orkut UI which has very few new features for communities and community owners. If you go to any Orkut community or create your own, you won’t notice any change at once except few moderation options like accepting new requests from profile page and only owners and moderators can start threads in the community etc.
Some Orkut Communities are best among internet’s vast arena of many social networking and message board websites, if Orkut’s developers think that by introducing new UI they can hold the loosening grip of Orkut then they are not completely wrong but they can definitely loose the real charm of Orkut which is in its beautiful communities.
Community Forums of Orkut really need a better change and modifications, especially in the forum area which looks simple and dull. I asked many community owners and moderators to get their suggestions and features they wish to see regarding Orkut communities which I am listing here :
1. Community Description with unlimited alphabets.
2. Rating best threads or most active threads.
3. Option of ‘quote’/’reply’ to in discussion threads.
4. Better and easy way of formatting texts while posting topics.
5. Owner/Moderator can close threads for posting.
6. Owner/Moderator can stick important threads on top.
These are few suggestions to keep the activities of Orkut communities energetic and live. What social networking means to you is a different question, but meeting likeminded people and doing something great for others is only because of such groups and communities that make a civilized society both online and offline.
I have tried to highlight the issues which could affect the quality time that users spend on Orkut networking with likeminded people, which is possible only through forums and communities and not just through profile pages. It is communities only which provide the users an opportunity to read other people’s views on topics of common interest and forming lasting professional and personal relationships.
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{ 17 comments }
I completely agree with your opinion Zazo bhai… Since trying the new Orkut, I have hardly visited the communities… as it is not very obvious on the frontpage… and as they say, if u dont see it, u dont feel it…
Thanks Dev, it worried me since I saw the new orkut UI. If this happens than we will miss all these wonderful online communities on orkut.
Nice and relevant article. I totally agree with you, Zazo. The new orkut is not at all meant for people like me who think Community is the most important aspect of any social networking site. The new orkut is keeping me away from the communities and other members are complaining
. Only good feature it has provided for communities is now moderators can view/accept membership from their home page. Previously only owner had that provision. This is very useful for moderators who manages multiple communities.
Other than what Zazo said about suggestions, I like to add few more.
1. Option of renaming community forum name (for owners/moderators only). Presently if found the name is not suitable, only way is to delete and recreate the thread.
2. Option of creating non-anonymous poll. Their are certain decision making polls for which voters identity need to be revealed. This is avoid fake votes.
3. Community Tag Line (like what we have as status message in individual profile). Here in one line the significance of the community can be explained or any important update can be given by owner.
4. Community recommendation of the user (like friend suggestion of individual profile)
Thanks Nilay for your valuable comment. I hope that before releasing new orkut for everyone, orkut's developer should consider these points to save orkut communities to become a history.
It's my pleasure Zazo…thx again for the nice article. I posted some of this suggestions in Orkut Help/Support forum. Don't know whether they are really considering at least some of them.
I have another wishlist. Like “recent visitors” of individual profiles, community owner/moderators can get a list of Recent Visitors of that community. The advantage is that many “inactive” members visit the community regularly but do not post (may be because they feel bit uneasy to post something in public forum). The owner/moderator can try to convince them to say that there is no harm of expressing opinions in a democratic country and can make them “active”
Good start. You could probably shorten the article by just using a couple of sentences. Orkut's neglect of the long-standing basic problems with the Orkut interface for both individuals and communities is a threat to Orkut. They continually devote energy to meaningless cosmetic changes and ignore the many problems with the usability of the basic foundation of the Orkut website and the years of user requests to fix them.
Good start. You could probably shorten the article by just using a couple of sentences. Orkut's neglect of the long-standing basic problems with the Orkut interface for both individuals and communities is a threat to Orkut. They continually devote energy to meaningless cosmetic changes and ignore the many problems with the usability of the basic foundation of the Orkut website and the years of user requests to fix them.
For a list of the problems and requests, just spend a few minutes browsing through the Orkut Community Owner's group. There are 5 years worth of complaints, requests and suggestions there.
Apart from what you mentioned, Orkut communities is missing a major feature.
There must be a way to subscribe to forum topics and see the updates/answers in the user homepage. Otherwise it is so difficult to go the topic and check for replies every time. This is missing from a long time. It's high time they implement it. This feature increases the participation in the communities.
Social Networking sites is a hot business, they hardly cares about what's going inside it. I dare to say that this new orkut is an answer to fastest growing facebook in India and Brazil.
There are many more features which are in need. Thannks anyways Chandra, hope they read this.
Well written review, Zazo. I do agree that Orkut/Google is tending to focus too much on the stylistic details and content of Profile pages, while neglecting improvements and developments for Communities. However…
I'm not quite so pessimistic about the new version being a threat to communities. Your experiment was quite interesting in comparing the contributions you received on your question, between the Friend Updates on your Homepage, and a Topic in a community.
If I may say though… It was a question of a rather personal nature, although I do realize that the input of other Parents would be valuable to others, when posted in a community setting. Yet there are many subjects that just really do not lend themselves to a simple and limited discussion, as exist in Friend Updates. Several of the Communities I own… Such as Classical Music and Astronomy II, often require the contributions of many members who may not be mutual friends.
Many of we Community owner would love if there were greater participation in our Communities…
Yet we cannot deny that as owners, we do have somewhat of an obligation to be a stimulus for participation. One of the minor ways I try to do this is by not answering questions relayed to me personally. If someone scraps me with questions about Astronomy or Classical Music, I politely ask them to post about it in the Community. That by doing so, the responses and answers will be available to any and all who may have similar questions.
As well as, potentially being a spark for conversation or debate on similar topics of interest.
Basically… I guess what I'm trying to say is that people who are active participants in Communities… Or new Orkut members who desire to participate in Communities… Are not going to be less likely to do so because of the new version of Orkut.
You and others have made great suggestions on features which would make Communities of both greater use to members, but also more easily managed by the owner and mods. A few others that I would like to see, and are a basic option in most Internet Bulletin Boards…
* A hidden section of the Community, where the owner and mods can easily communicate about potential problem members… topics and post with questionable content… etc.
* The ability for owners and/or mods, to edit the content of member posts.
* Allowing the owner to “customize” the rights extended to mods.
* Implementing a facile method to create back-ups of Community content.
I'd also be very interested in reading comments by Michelle and Lynn. They are both very contentious Community owners who have some very good ideas as well.
– Frank F. Moore
To be frank, writer has miscalculated the importance of communities just by getting answer of a silly question out of the community. I'll be taking this point later in my comment.
As far as question is of the users spending most of their time in updating their profiles, let me tell you, this is fondness of just a few months, if not days. New Orkut would become normal someday. We would hardly bother changing our About Me section. Do you remember the time when we could not even format text in ABOUT ME section in colors, and everything used to remain emotionless, there was no hyperlinking. When google introduced all these feature, there was a enthusiasm. But it lasted for some days, and then users became addicted to it, and did what they actually used Orkut to do. Same would happen with this. And to be more frank, many users don't even know how to embed images, flash objects in profile. When they learn it, obviously, the would have a zeal for it. What do you think? They would stick to same thing forever? Nope. Either people would change, or Orkut will again be back with new changes.
Lets come to communities now. You know communities serve unlimited purposes, and answer unlimited questions. Just by getting one answer by updating the status doesn't write off importance of communities. There are communities that stand very good when it comes to discussion of nations, politics, technology, education, gaming and stuff. If a communnity has 100k members, and suppose only only 1% of it are active, can you imagine number of replies to your question? You can't even add 1% to your friends' list. Just check out India community. I bet you won't doubt importance of communities. There are hell lot of other communities that have great discussions going on within them. You can't get that benefit in your profile for sure.
And as far as is the question of adding more features in communities, let me tell you, google is already working out on them. But proper changes would be brought in at the apt time. Improvement comes out with time
Have Fun. God bless
i myself running a big community. is it really true man?
@ Supriya and Paracelsus,
I agree to your points for not completely agreeing with me. But, I still stand with my views on orkut communities being neglected by orkut since years. The new orkut may not be a 100% threat to orkut communities but to some extent it will deduct the amount of time orkut users spend on their favorite communities.
Most of the people on social networking are more interested in connecting to a large network than making themselves busy in communities or groups however, they have interest in particular subject but still they find less time to search for a related group, than post a discussion topic and finally keep on checking for replies, mind it I am not talking about community forum enthusiasts like we all, so if you consider my point than orkut is making busy people more on their own profiles.
Niche communities are another exceptions because its fact that you wont enjoy the deep discussions and debates without joining a real dedicated group. Well, lets see how people take this new orkut in their daily online activity.
I do understand the point you are making, Zazo, and it is well taken. There are many ways to view the situation, none of which are exclusively valid or wrong. BTW… I personally feel that Supriya was being unduly harsh in his critique. I admire your forbearance in replying.
Your question was most certainly NOT silly. It is a subject of great concern to many first time parents. But enough of that.
Most people who know me, know that I value quality over quantity. I've not been interested in having a huge number of friends or being a member of a large number of communities. Neither have I any interest in member counts at the communities I own. In fact, as all of my communities are Moderated and I review every new member request….
I frequently turn down those who already belong to 300+ Communities, as it is almost certain that they are merely “collecting” Communities and have no real interest in participating.
But as you say… Time will tell.
One more thing is, Being moderator of some communities, I generally visit the communities to accept new members. And If I found something interesting I just write over there. As now Moderation is easy and on profile page, my visit to community has been affected and reduced for sure. It is possible that people may find owner or Moderator, not that active as they may expect. Let's see what Orkut developers are working on to keep interest of users in Community…
One more thing is, Being moderator of some communities, I generally visit the communities to accept new members. And If I found something interesting I just write over there. As now Moderation is easy and on profile page, my visit to community has been affected and reduced for sure. It is possible that people may find owner or Moderator, not that active as they may expect. Let's see what Orkut developers are working on to keep interest of users in Community…