A lot of signs indicate that Google is preparing Orkut for something big; it may well want the service to compete with the likes of MySpace and Facebook. But the latest update – allowing users to keep 100 photos in their “orkut albums” – isn’t impressing too many people.
Actually, Orkut may have originally upped the limit to just 50. Googlified’s Haochi Chen noted this, and then concluded, “Wow. ROFLMAO.”
Commenters that weighed in tended to hold similar opinions. gSpy’s Keith Chan wrote, “[W]hen Facebook is giving out unlimited storage to its users to photos … how could Google still be allowing only 50? I already have 200+ photos in Facebook.”
Perhaps as a result of this feedback, the Orkut Blog post now states that “you can have up to 100 photos in your orkut album!” Yet I still don’t hear the sound of children celebrating in the streets.
Google’s widely viewed as a winner – one product after another succeeds wildly. The company’s had some misses, though, and many of them are related to Orkut; the social network just can’t seem to catch on in the U.S., despite its popularity in Brazil and India. Arguments like “we can hold 100 photos” aren’t helping, but on the bright side, Natalie Schwartz promises, “[W]e’ll continue to add photo space to accommodate even the extreme photo buff.”