The Orkut/Data Connection

Jeremy Zwadony nails a key reason Google needs Orkut – it's the data…Yahoo, MSN, AOL all have boatloads of data about their users. For future search models like local and personalized advertising, and for user lock-in, this kind of information is critical. So far, Google has very little data on…

Jeremy Zwadony nails a key reason Google needs Orkut – it’s the data…Yahoo, MSN, AOL all have boatloads of data about their users. For future search models like local and personalized advertising, and for user lock-in, this kind of information is critical. So far, Google has very little data on its users. Orkut could solve that, for a portion of the user base…if it would work, that is. It was offline (unintentionally) most of yesterday…wonder if they are ruing the .net decision…

7 thoughts on “The Orkut/Data Connection”

  1. They might have to wait a while to get any worthwhile data. Most of the current members are journalists, tech gurus and SEO addicts. That would make for some creepy data.

  2. This thesis suggests that users are best served maintaining FOAF files, and letting SEOs et al. compete on execution, rather than data lock-in.

    So an opportunity for providers of FOAF file management (i.e. standards-based personal identity management)…

    Maybe the old infomediary idea will be new again…

  3. It is about the Data, but it is about smart data; MS/AOL and Yahoo dont have smart data. You need to get semantic and ontologic if you really want to see the beauty of Metadata, RDF and RSS in action. Why does Google still only get to 38% utility on a Crawl of 4B htmls and X amount of EDIs?

    What Jeremy Z. does not know is that THE platform IS already here and the data has been changed to protect the innocent; Its the biggest thing that has hit Silicon Valley since Netscape….Nova Spivack has been working on this for years with his MIT genius CTO Kris Thorensen.

    The Radar Networks demo has literally blown Sand Hill Road out of their chairs and has become a thing of epic legend in the last month.

    XML cannot keep pace with info/data overload. Its about Metadata and allowing RSS/RDF to function semantically; this has enormous implications to existing db and router architecture. And if by adopting this we could solve spam, allow darknets
    and scale to billions of users…Guess what, Google may need to rethink timing on S-1 filings and Microsoft may end-up shitcanning Longhorn or at least renaming it LongGone or LongGong. So yee want to see Social Networking really scale, intelligently, Herr Batelle? Thou needest Radar!

  4. I realize I am behind the times here, but I thought I would chime in (if only to hear the sonorous echo of my own voice). I realize that Google certainly has a business interest that depends on advertising, and I am certain that they will do what they can to make profits happen. However, I am curious why no one seems to consider what to me is the obvious goal of Orkut-to created a social map of every active user on the web, linked from profile to profile. The reason you name the program after the creator is because he represents the associative center of the human matrix-the zero point, as you will, and every profile must, in some manner, eventually connect back to him-this is a rather interesting feat in itself, something a programmer would be happy to do for its own sake. Even if Orkut is only moderately successful, it will still stand as an associative map of perhaps a significant minority of the most active, computer savvy users on the web. It is the equivalent of a giant address book, but filled with all sorts of telling details about its members. Such a picture of humanity could lead to an entirely different approach to advertising, where advertisers could track with great specificity the interests of entire social networks. While one could on a limited scale do the same thing with Friendster, it would be trickier, because people without friends can have accounts on Friendster. Orkut’s by invitation only approach forces social organization into every registration, and although I am sure there are plenty of exceptions (selling invites on ebay, or, perhaps, friends inviting acquaintances who they later come to despise, as well as whole groups of people who probably end up dropping their part of the program altogether, tiring of the fad), the vast majority of networked individuals stay networked, connected in ways that can conceivably be analyzed, and perhaps exploited by advertisers and the like. Of course, that would be evil, and Google isn’t supposed to be evil (or so the devil says). Perhaps they are only interested in discovering how many degrees they really are away from Kevin Bacon. It’s hard to say, but you have to admit that such data would be marvelous to have, for businessmen and academics alike.

  5. i want my orkut deleted profile back can i get it? im ready to pay for it i just want to see my scraps

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