Google's Orkut Using Buzz Tactics To Fight FaceBook?

Is Orkut feeling the heat of users migrating to rival social networking sites such as FaceBook? The most recent tactics adopted by Google's Orkut seem to convey that. When I logged in to my Gmail account earlier in the day, I saw a neat “Updates from your friends” mail sitting in my Inbox, sent by Orkut.

Google, being a provider of both email services (Gmail) and of social networking (Orkut, Wave, Buzz, Chat) has a unique weapon up its sleeve that FaceBook does not. People can remain logged in to their email page all through the day (whether for work or for checking personal mail) whereas FaceBook, a social networking website is frowned upon at work places and users try not to be seen logged on to it while they are supposed to be getting work done.

That Google could leverage its position as an email provider on the web, to gain users for its social networking services was amply demonstrated when Google Buzz was launched a few months ago. There has been speculation that Google feels it is not getting as much of the potential market share as it could (read about "Google Me"). Their existing arsenal of services that try and get you talking to other people in your friend-circle with a Google Account consists of Google Chat, Buzz, Wave and Orkut, listed in order of how freely each service thinks it can show itself up in your Gmail Inbox.

In contrast, not everything that comes up on your FaceBook Wall make their way into your email. You have to logon to the site yourself, to see what is going on among your circle of friends. Until recently, Google’s Orkut also seemed to subscribe to this ideology, of not showing up in your email uninvited. The current experiment by Orkut which started on 7th July 2010 might signal a break from the old policy and take a leaf from the playbook of Google’s Buzz. The mail I received had a subject line that said “orkut - Updates from your friends, 7/7/2010” and called itself a “digest” of updates. Being quite a long mail, it had important elements at the top of the mail body, such as Birthday Reminders and Friend Suggestions. Then a list of updates from my friends followed, including status messages, videos added, quizzes taken, etc.

I had not logged-in to the service in a long time, so I certainly had not changed any settings to opt-in or start receiving updates from Orkut. For those who keep Inboxes clean and hate unsolicited mail, there is an unsubscribe link and a message at the top of the mail itself that says “Here are some updates from your friends on orkut. If you do not wish to receive other messages we can stop sending you this digest.” Not everyone seems to have received the Orkut Updates Digest that we speak of in this article, nor did I receive it again after the first day, so it looks like this is a feature in experiment mode true to Google’s penchant for all things in beta. The Orkut social networking site has a wide user base in India. Seen below is a zoomed-out screenshot of the Orkut Updates Digest that I received: