Written On: Jan 4 2008
Orkut has finally rolled out the much required feature for photos management. Now you can create albums. Till now there was no way the users can manage photos into albums. All the photos were just under the photos section. Now all the photos are moved to a default album and the users can create new albums to manage their photos. Though individual album level privacy options are not available, its good to see this basic album feature. And more interestingly, its AJAX baby, photo captions are edited/updated through AJAX.
There are still few unimplemented features like moving photos between albums , individual album level privacy options, private albums only for invited friends and so on…
Happy Orkuting!
Written On: Dec 19 2007
Yes, Orkut is hit by a self spreading worm which did not do any major damages(hopefully) except sending out scraps to your friends on behalf of you. This process repeats itself when someone views an infected scrapbook.
External links on this story:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,140653-c,worms/article.html
http://orkutplus.blogspot.com/2007/12/breaking-xss-in-scrapbook-if-you-open.html
Orkut allows embedding html into the scrapbook. One can add falsh objects also. It seems that the worm creator exploited this option to create the worm.
Seems Google guys have fixed it now, but it reminds everyone about how complex web application security is. Primarily handling Cross Site Scripting(XSS) attacks is very crucial for safe web applications.
As most of the Orkut users use the same gmail account with Orkut, Google should be very careful with Orkut and exploits like these can lead to great damages for the users. Imagine giving out your gmail authentication information to someone who you do not know, how bad it will be. These exploits can be such dangerous. Google guys should spend some of there bucks into safeguarding Orkut from further exploits. Wakeup Google, OpenSocial is not the only stuff you have to take care about Orkut, there is something more demanding your attention.
I suggest changing your Orkut or Google Account password regularly if it is the primary email you use it daily. Change your password at least once in two weeks.
Written On: Nov 3 2007
I am writing this post or lets say an unofficial letter to OpenSocial team out of frustration as I am still waiting to get my Orkut Sandbox account approved to use the sandbox environment. Its already a more than 24 hour wait and there is no clue how long I will have to wait to get the account activated.
Update: My account got activated just after 2 hours of publishing this post. Anyways I just want to keep this post intact to allow other developers to share their experiences.
Dear OpenSocial Team,
First let me congratulate you for the initial success of OpenSocial and evangelizing such an open approach to developing social web applications. I am sure it is going to be a great success and change the way social apps are written. After a long wait and a long stream of clicks on the refresh button in my browser I was finally able to see the website live. But my enthusiasm did not long last. I have read all the documents and every bit of information available in the website. Signed up for the Orkut sandbox account within an hour after the OpenSocial API was live to the general public and was excited about writing my first social web app using OpenSocial. Unfortunately that did not happen and I am still waiting to get approved to use OpenSocial inside Orkut Sandbox environment. I am not sure how long I will have to wait. When I have gone through the messages on the OpenSocial Developers Google forum I have seen many developer waiting to get their accounts activated for Orkut sandbox to experiment with the OpenSocial API for the first time. They do not know how long they have to wait. Few of the developers got access within 30 minutes after signing up. But there are many guys like me who are waiting for their turn and checking their email regularly hoping to get an email about their account activation.
You cannot be unfair to few developers and it has to be open to all the developers at the same time or at least on a first come first serve basis. After all you call it OpenSocial.
I sincerely request you to let all of us know about the wait time and the process you are following to approve the developer accounts.
Yours sincerely,
V V K Chandra
Written On: Nov 2 2007
Finally I am able to see the OpenSocial website live after a long wait and many clicks on the refresh button in my browser.
Seems there is a lot of information and it takes some time to understand the working. I have just started reading the docs available and will be updating this space with more details regularly.
Written On: Nov 1 2007
TechCrunch has screen shots of applications deployed using OpenSocial on various social networks. Following are the two screen shots of popular facebook application iLike deployed inside orkut using OpenSocial.
Images are taken from TechCrunch.
From the images I think Google has plans to introduce some privacy for who can view the full profile.
Written On: Nov 1 2007
TechCrunch has published images of OpenSocial APIs in action on various social networks. Check it out!
Link: OpenSocial image gallery on TechCrunch
Written On: Oct 31 2007
TechCrunch has details about Google’s much anticipated new social networking platform. Google is going to launch a set of APIs named as OpenSocial (link will be live from Nov 1st) which will allow developers to build applications for participating social networks. From TechCrunch:
OpenSocial is a set of common APIs that application developers can use to create applications that work on any social networks (called “hosts”) that choose to participate.
Image taken from TechCrunch
OpenSocial is a set of three APIs using which developers can access core functions and information of any social network
- Profile Information (user data)
- Friends Information (social graph)
- Activities (things that happen, News Feed type stuff)
Since FaceBook launched its platform, there is a lot of buzz about social networking websites opening up the data to the application developers to deploy applications on the host social network. But the developers have to learn different APIs to launch applications for different social networks. But with OpenSocial, Google has addressed this problem and defined a set of APIs which will be common for all participating social networks. Every participating network should implement the APIs and developers can deploy the same applications across all networks.
For Google, the effort could breathe new life into Orkut. Orkut is pretty popular in Brazil and India.
More updates to come when Google officially launches the OpenSocial.
Written On: Oct 16 2007
Any useful new technology or any new invention is abused or used for evil purposes. We have seen this through out our history. After all, Orkut is no exception. Fake profiles and the profiles created by marketers to promote their products are few of the serious issues need to be addressed by Google if they want to scale Orkut and become number one in the social networking space.
Fake profiles are usually created to impersonate a real person. They are usually created by the people who know the personal details of a user and create a profile to impersonate him or her and there by causing all sorts of problems for the victim. In February 2007, the father of a South Delhi schoolgirl has approached the Cyber Cell of the Delhi Police’s Economic Offenses Wing complaining against a fake profile of his daughter posted on Orkut. Two men knocked at the girl’s door one day claiming she had invited them through Orkut for discreet intimate relationship. Though the cops can find out the prankster, the victim will suffer a lot socially and even at a personal level. This is a real threat.
Unreal profiles are usually created by real persons who try to act as someone who does not exist in the reality. One kind of these profiles are created by marketers and other people to promote their products and services on Orkut. There is no real harm except getting spam messages and scraps which can easily be avoided by enabling corresponding privacy options. But the real threat with unreal profiles comes into play when a profile is created by a real person to impersonate a non existing person. For example, creating a person’s profile who in the reality does not exist and trying to fool the people and exploit them as if the person actually exists in the reality. This kind of exploiting was very common when the Instant Messaging was introduced and it still continues to exist.
Lets see how Orkut can put some authentication processes in place to combat this serious threat. I have thought of a simple solution and I am sure Google might be trying to implement some kind of solution to tackle this problem.
Read the rest of this post »
Written On: Oct 12 2007
Since I started this blog and an Orkut Community to discuss the buzz surrounding Google’s plan to open Orkut platform, I have been asked what exactly this is all about?. If you are a FaceBook user, you may already know few things about what exactly these terms are.
This article is basically written for the users who are not so familiar with the latest happenings in the social networking space and for non-technical users of Orkut.
I am simplifying the things to the most basic level and assuming few things as there is no official confirmation and documentation available from Google at the time of writing this article.
When Google opens up Orkut Platform through a set of application programming interfaces (APIs) and services, these will allow outside developers to inject new features and content into the Orkut user experience.
Let me present you with two real world scenarios to understand these terms and technologies from the bottom up.
Scenario 1:
Imagine, you want to get opinions on a specific topic or an answer for a question from your friends in orkut. Will you scrap everyone in your friends list or will you send an email to everyone? They are not flexible and it will be a heck to sort out all the emails and scraps. So, wouldn’t it be great if this kind of functionality is built into Orkut where you ask a question on your profile page and people can answer then and there without moving out of the page. Your friends can see the list of answers given by others and there are all possibilities that you can get an answer to a question or an opinion on a topic/idea. Rating the quality of the answers can also be included.
Read the rest of this post »
Written On: Oct 11 2007
Google has integrated its Hindi transliteration into Orkut scraps. Now users can scrap in Hindi language directly from Orkut. Previously users were using some other web sites to type in Hindi and copy paste from there into Orkut. The transliteration service seems to be very advanced with inline word suggestions.
No doubt Orkut is the biggest Social Networking Site in India and these kind of tools will really help drive more users to the site. Orkut interface is already made available in 5 indic languages to encourage more Indians to join.
Learn how to integrate Hindi scrapping for your profile from the Orkut official blog post about scrapping in Hindi.
Link: Write Orkut Scraps in Hindi
There are few other Social Networking Sites in India trying to capitalize on the growing popularity of these sites in India. But are these websites listening? Guys you need some real hard work to come anywhere near to Orkut.
