Orkutmania
Orkutmania
by Marcelo Maciel de Almeida
(http://www.orkut.com/Profile.aspx?uid=3925289186367986160)
The beginning
Orkut is an Internet social network service run by Google, named afer its creator, Orkut Büyükkökten, a Turkish software engineer. It was launched on January 22nd, 2004, and it was designed to help users meet new friends and keep in touch.
What it makes it a good tool?
The good point about Orkut, I reckon, is the fact you can find friends you haven’t seen for ages. I found classmates I had at high school and at university. However, in my page, there are loads of people I’ve never seen in my life. In the past I used to accept everybody who added me. For some time, I really thought about quantity and, maybe, popularity, but nowadys I understand this isn’t what I intend for my Orkut page.
There are several communities to be joined in Orkut. You can even create your own community and dedicate it to someone else. What I found amazing is the fact there are many ELT communities.
As a teacher, Orkut has become a useful tool. Sometimes I want to send scraps to my pupils reminding them about tests and homework, for instance. It also became a powerful tool so that I can be aware of friends’ birthdays, and as I have an awful memory when it comes to dates...
Controversy
Some of Orkut’s drawbacks is the fact you may have your private life invaded by its members. Once a friend of mine mentioned this point, but I told her I had no problems with this. I see it as a way of expanding my social life, despite the fact I know there is a remote chance of meeting people I don’t know.
It has been reported that some users have been creating fake profiles. What is more, there are some offensive contents in some profiles, such as nudity and even pedophilia. That’s why I think it must be strictly regulated. Nevertheless, you are able to ban such offensive contents.
Nowadays you are able to see recent visitors who checked your page. I found the implementation of this system really useful.
Brazilian Popularity[1]
Orkut community has been watching a large surge[2] of Brazilian users registering on its service. This is a known and curious fact. The number of Brazilian Orkut users has reached approximately 72.72% of the total users, followed by the United States, with about 10.92%. Due to the number of Brazilian users and communities in the Portuguese language, users from other parts of the world got upset with the service, when it established Portuguese as the first "alternate default[3] language," (as English was the primary default language) prompting many community owners to enforce an English-only posting policy.
A Turnaround[4]
During U2's Vertigo show in Brazil, which was broadcast by TV to 80 million people, Bono invited a Brazilian girl, Katilce Miranda, onto the stage. This is a very common act in their shows, but the girl's Orkut profile skyrocketed[5] her to a celebrity status in Orkut. On the week after the show, she received about 3 million scrapbook entries, and more than a thousand communities about her were created.
On 3 March 2006 the profile was deleted with around 3.7 million scraps. In an interview to Transamérica radio on the morning of 4 March 2006, Katilce said that she was not responsible for removing the profile, but rather stated that "it was Orkut". Recent rumours say that Katilce was invited by Rede Globo to become an actress, most likely to act in soap operas.
590 words
[1] From this part of the article to the end, there is a quotation from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orkut
[2] a sudden increase in the amount or number of sth; a large amount of sth.
[3] if sth happens by default, it happens because you have not made any other decision or choices which would make things happen differently
[4] * a situation in which sth changes from bad to good. * a complete change in sb’s opinion, behaviour, etc.
[5] to rise quickly to a very high level.
by Marcelo Maciel de Almeida
(http://www.orkut.com/Profile.aspx?uid=3925289186367986160)
The beginning
Orkut is an Internet social network service run by Google, named afer its creator, Orkut Büyükkökten, a Turkish software engineer. It was launched on January 22nd, 2004, and it was designed to help users meet new friends and keep in touch.
What it makes it a good tool?
The good point about Orkut, I reckon, is the fact you can find friends you haven’t seen for ages. I found classmates I had at high school and at university. However, in my page, there are loads of people I’ve never seen in my life. In the past I used to accept everybody who added me. For some time, I really thought about quantity and, maybe, popularity, but nowadys I understand this isn’t what I intend for my Orkut page.
There are several communities to be joined in Orkut. You can even create your own community and dedicate it to someone else. What I found amazing is the fact there are many ELT communities.
As a teacher, Orkut has become a useful tool. Sometimes I want to send scraps to my pupils reminding them about tests and homework, for instance. It also became a powerful tool so that I can be aware of friends’ birthdays, and as I have an awful memory when it comes to dates...
Controversy
Some of Orkut’s drawbacks is the fact you may have your private life invaded by its members. Once a friend of mine mentioned this point, but I told her I had no problems with this. I see it as a way of expanding my social life, despite the fact I know there is a remote chance of meeting people I don’t know.
It has been reported that some users have been creating fake profiles. What is more, there are some offensive contents in some profiles, such as nudity and even pedophilia. That’s why I think it must be strictly regulated. Nevertheless, you are able to ban such offensive contents.
Nowadays you are able to see recent visitors who checked your page. I found the implementation of this system really useful.
Brazilian Popularity[1]
Orkut community has been watching a large surge[2] of Brazilian users registering on its service. This is a known and curious fact. The number of Brazilian Orkut users has reached approximately 72.72% of the total users, followed by the United States, with about 10.92%. Due to the number of Brazilian users and communities in the Portuguese language, users from other parts of the world got upset with the service, when it established Portuguese as the first "alternate default[3] language," (as English was the primary default language) prompting many community owners to enforce an English-only posting policy.
A Turnaround[4]
During U2's Vertigo show in Brazil, which was broadcast by TV to 80 million people, Bono invited a Brazilian girl, Katilce Miranda, onto the stage. This is a very common act in their shows, but the girl's Orkut profile skyrocketed[5] her to a celebrity status in Orkut. On the week after the show, she received about 3 million scrapbook entries, and more than a thousand communities about her were created.
On 3 March 2006 the profile was deleted with around 3.7 million scraps. In an interview to Transamérica radio on the morning of 4 March 2006, Katilce said that she was not responsible for removing the profile, but rather stated that "it was Orkut". Recent rumours say that Katilce was invited by Rede Globo to become an actress, most likely to act in soap operas.
590 words
[1] From this part of the article to the end, there is a quotation from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orkut
[2] a sudden increase in the amount or number of sth; a large amount of sth.
[3] if sth happens by default, it happens because you have not made any other decision or choices which would make things happen differently
[4] * a situation in which sth changes from bad to good. * a complete change in sb’s opinion, behaviour, etc.
[5] to rise quickly to a very high level.
posted by Marcelo Maciel de Almeida at 6:32 PM
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