One might think that the top users in Orkut would be Americans. Given that this is a Google sponsored social-networking site, this seems logical. But the truth is that thousands of Brazilians have become loyal devotees of Google’s popular new service.
The rush of Brazilians to join Orkut and other online social networking sites has upset many users, with some members complaining about messages being posted in Portuguese, Brazil’s native language. Some have gone as far to start online communities specifically for griping and complaining about this issue.
The United States has approximately 153 million internet users, compared with Brazil’s 20 million. This being said, Orkut reported that Brazilians dominated its membership list in June, outnumbering Americans for the first time, according to infoshop.org
For the month of June, Orkut reported that in first place were Brazilian users with 41.2 percent of all memberships, followed by Americans with 23.5 percent, and in a distant third were Orkut’s Iranian members, who garnered about 6 percent.
To join Orkut you must be invited, much like Google’s GMail. Potential members must be given an invitation by a current member.
Orkut, named after Orkut Buyukkokten, a Google software engineer who happens to find himself in hot water over his creation, debuted in January and is still in the Beta testing stages.
Discuss Orkut in WebProWorld, the murdok forum.
Jeremy Muncy is a staff writer for www.murdok.org
