I suspect that Orkut is the Google equivalent of the ROKR, the iTunes phone that preceded iPhone. It's a moderately successful trial until Google can really sink its teeth into social networking, whether through its own service or an acquisition or a Twitter/Facebook clone or a new idea entirely.
Orkut was a creation by one of their employees in the early days of social networks. It was experimental, no one had yet determined if social network sites really had any staying power. Up to that point I think Friendster had really been the only one to break any ground.
Orkut also never really got Google's blessing. It wasn't fully integrated into Google Accounts and for the time I was on it, never even had a Google logo on the site.
Not true anymore. You're talking about the state of Orkut from two years ago, maybe longer.
There is integration with Google Accounts, the main page today shows (timidly) Google's logo and they have a good part of their team in Brazil working on it.
Good to hear, I got off of it several years ago. I know it's still thriving in Brazil but haven't looked into it at all except once in the past year I think when I somehow ended up on my Orkut page...
It's a little weirder than that, since Orkut is huge in Brazil and India but unknown in the US. It's kind of the opposite of, say, Google Search which is big in most countries but less than 5% market share in Korea.
