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Unfortunately, if google changed their links now to recorded redirects, there would be a large outcry about privacy concerns. When google added a user cookie (the first popular search engine to do so.) people were concerned about someone's search behavior being tracked. When they started selling AdWords, people wondered if their google cookie could then expose their browsing habits. Right now, people are concerned about their Orkut project.

There are only so many times they can feign innocence on the matter.

Remember to check their Terms :
By submitting, posting or displaying any Materials on or through the orkut.com service, you automatically grant to us a worldwide, non-exclusive, sublicenseable, transferable, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable right to copy, distribute, create derivative works of, publicly perform and display such Materials.

They invented their own licencse. What do you think if Micro$oft buyes Google ?
And its based on .aspx files....

I dont want to know how they care about data privacy

Well, it's not the first time for such to happen. Look at it, Orkut, a similar venture by another Ivy League college.
Not something I'd want to associate myself with, given the prophecy of doom another one of these ventures
shows with their photo of them "Leading the Way to Darwin". Fine, I'll be glad to welcome their demise...

Just give everyone in Utah a membership at Orkut and require them to invite everyone they know (under the Patriot Act, of course).

We are committed to providing an online meeting place where people can socialize, make new acquaintances and find others who share their interests.

Doesn't it sound like this also ties in with researching those people who share your interests?

Membership to orkut is by invitation only.

I see. Well, of course, this is just the sort of blinkered philistine pig-ignorance I've come to expect from you non-creative garbage. You sit there on your loathsome spotty behinds squeezing blackheads, not caring a tinker's cuss for the struggling social outcast. You excrement, you whining hypocritical toadies with your democratic PageRank algorithm and your trendy employee benefits and your bleeding holiday logos. You wouldn't let me join, would you, you blackballing bastards? Well I wouldn't become an Orkut member if you went down on your lousy stinking knees and begged me! ...

But if any of you could put in a word for me I'd love to be in Orkut. Orkut opens doors. I'd be very quiet, I was a bit on edge just now but if I were in Orkut, I'd sit at the back and not get in anyone's way...

Err, the cached login screen looks no different from the real login screen.

Actually, they only hit you with the "we're down" notice after you successfully log in, so the authentication stuff is still working,

Before we could learn to pronounce it, it was shut down. It's not that the servers are melting with the rapid rise to ~3 million page views or 500th most popular site in a couple of days. It's not a conspiracy of data collection or a learning curve. orkut, which should really be named Oogle, demonstrated that a high performance explicit social networking site, well designed for digital immeadiate gratification (one local engineer personally even complained they had to click from map to profile to add a friend), supported by brand and with the right root can unleash latent demand. I would say this is reflective of the dearth of social capital in our society, but aside from such heady stuff, frictionless whuffie fun, huh? Latent demand for what is the question. Internet researchers would die excruciating deaths in search of the last days of data. I would venture a guess that most of the digerati that was already pre-conditions by existing services, an incomprehensible demographic that grants hypergrowth to the best, grants the best feedback, but easily taketh away. okurt doesn't work because it lacks constraints. Nothing hold people back. Nobody knows what a friend means. No social capital on the line. Its so fun and easy, choices and incentives are irrational. Normally this would raise questions. Some constraints make good social compact. Some constraints on openness curb pollution (spam, security). One of the better constraints is price because it lead to profit. However, AdSense is relatively frictionless. It adds new constraints while adding value. Same could be said for other well targeted forms of content, like blog posts...

okay. I fail to see what's so IIS-like about it.

In case anyone wants a little more information their help section And no, I'm not a member, I was looking around, got a 404 and managed to find my way there.

Friendster and Orkut

A few days ago ronebofh handed me an invite to Orkut, Google's new Friendster clone. I played with this for about 48 hours, adding and inviting various friends to my network and reading the messages that percolated through the network -- probably the only feature of Orkut I'll get much use out of. I'm a married person, not looking for a date, and not living in the Bay Area.

The topic of every message: Orkut itself. According to one message, any random friendless person can conveniently post a message that reaches thousands of users via their friend "networks." In other words, insanely convenient spammage. Another poster replied that this sort of endless nitpicking is sure to turn Orkut into yet another "hippie echo chamber." I think they opened for the Flaming Lips last week at the Trocadero.

Tonight Orkut has been shut down to "implement some improvements and upgrades suggested by users." In their defense, the Google staff point out that Orkut is in beta and they did warn us this sort of thing could happen. Ticked off, I decided to check out Friendster, which I somehow skipped up until now.

When I got to Friendster's site, I was surprised to see that Friendster also describes itself as a "beta" version. And that gave me some sympathy for the Orkut administrators, who are only trying to use the word "beta" to mean what "beta" is supposed to mean:

• Beta means "outsiders are welcome to play with this, but don't trust it with your life."
• Beta means "we have run out of ways to break it ourselves and really need some outside input now."
• Beta means "if something breaks, that's good; give us specific and detailed feedback, and don't whine."

But "beta" is not the most offensive phrase on the Friendster home page. "Patent pending" is much worse. A patent on online social networking? I'd laugh if it wasn't so... no, wait, I am laughing. Give me a break, here. Surely this is nonsense no one takes seriously. Right?

Wrong, wrong, wrong, according to this news.com story. sixdegrees patented online "social networking" sites in 2001. Two Friendster-like sites have acquired the patent. Now everyone in the field is furiously writing patent applications.

I'd like to invite you all over for a beer, but I can't afford the intellectual property fees.

In all seriousness, if you want in... e-mail me with subject "orkut" and body your name. I wonder how many people will take me seriously? For what it's worth, this is me.

If it responds with "invalid e-mail address", then you struck out; if not, score!

Now, next thing to do is to automate this with your mailbox, and then see which of your "friends" didn't invite you!

What is your spam policy?

We do not collect, track, nor distribute email addresses, IP addresses, or other personally identifying information. We request your email address in the registration process so that we can validate your identity and can contact you regarding your account.

information we collect

When you register to become a member of orkut.com, we collect your name, email address and other personal identifying information that you submit to the site.

how we use your information

We use your name and email address to notify you of new members, messages or other information, such as an invitation to join a friend's network; a new testimonial or "fan" rating; crush notices, etc. In addition, we will send you messages when there are substantive changes to the service or our policies. All of these messages can be sent to your primary email address or to your orkut.com inbox by setting your preferences on the "my settings" page.

We may share information that you submit and any non-personally identifiable information we collect with Google, Inc. and agents of orkut in accordance to the terms and conditions of this Privacy Policy.

So on the one hand, they don't collect email addresses. On the other hand, they do. So, which is it?

What is your spam policy?

We do not collect, track, nor distribute email addresses, IP addresses, or other personally identifying information. We request your email address in the registration process so that we can validate your identity and can contact you regarding your account.

information we collect

When you register to become a member of orkut.com, we collect your name, email address and other personal identifying information that you submit to the site.

how we use your information

We use your name and email address to notify you of new members, messages or other information, such as an invitation to join a friend's network; a new testimonial or "fan" rating; crush notices, etc. In addition, we will send you messages when there are substantive changes to the service or our policies. All of these messages can be sent to your primary email address or to your orkut.com inbox by setting your preferences on the "my settings" page.

We may share information that you submit and any non-personally identifiable information we collect with Google, Inc. and agents of orkut in accordance to the terms and conditions of this Privacy Policy.

So on the one hand, they don't collect email addresses. On the other hand, they do. So, which is it?

I mailed them and said I had no friends and will they please let me in. join me.

1) Wow, it's even more cliquey than C2! Well, almost.
2) The Orkut website is really pretty.
This is typical for Google. How do they get the text to fade in on page load? It's really neat. Look at the TOS page for an example - you see the pink/purple orkut.com's for a while, and then the rest of the text fades in. Is this just a simple CSS thing I should know but don't because I'm stupid?
3) Check out the "golden key" icon (at their privacy policy). It's amazing! lol