Orkut Adds “Updates From Your Friends” Box

Roughly ten days ago, Robert Scoble suggested that Facebook would, in a few years’ time, defeat Google.  Pretty much everyone within hearing range responded with something along the lines of “fat chance,” and I agree with ‘em.  Still, Orkut is just now introducing a feature that Facebook had about a year ago.

Orkut Adds “Updates From Your Friends” Box Facebook calls it a feed.  On the official Orkut Blog, Google’s even more straightforward with its “‘Updates from your friends’ box” description.  Natalie Schwartz, an associate product marketing manager, then promises, “We’re rolling this feature out over the next couple days, so if you don’t see it yet, you will soon!”
 
So it’s actually one year and counting, from the looks of things, since Facebook’s feeds arrived, but while embarrassing, this development isn’t particularly damning.  Orkut is, of course, Google’s social network, yet the property’s been neglected for a long time.  Facebook can’t beat Google at a game the search giant’s not playing.

Unless Google reconsiders.  “Google has finally realized that orkut is an important player in the social networking space and it could become more popular outside Brazil and India if Google invested more time and trust,” writes Ionut Alex Chitu.

And following that mention of “trust,” I’ll remind you that Facebook’s feeds caused quite an uproar due to their privacy-violating tendencies.  Orkut appears to have learned from that incident, however, and Schwartz reports, “we’ve added an easy opt-out button on the settings page.”