Where orkut has gone wrong…

Is it only me or is it true that the fizz from orkut is slowly but surely disappearing?

I certainly think so, this despite the recent changes (third party applications and the likes) that have been made to the popular social networking site. Obviously, things like this or this does not help orkut’s cause. But there are other minor observations that I have made that , I think, have hampered orkut’s growth. Two of these are:

1. Scrapback feature in scrapback: Yes, I am talking about the reply feature that you would be having in your scrapbook which did not exist a while back. No denying the fact that this is more convenient than going into someone’s scrapbook and posting a scrap as a reply. But if you think about it, the earlier process ensured that I would have read scraps posted by some other person, who maybe a common friend for all you know. This maybe possibly because I would like to have seen what these guys were conversing about. And this cycle continues ensuring that I am on orkut for that much more longer. In the present scenario, this situation would not exist and I may be going into another person’s scrapbook without really knowing what I am looking for. There are good reasons why that would not happen so often.

2. Restricting photo albums to only friends and not making it public : Again, I can see the reason behind this implemenatation. But lets face it. There are soooo many guys out there who would just want to do some time pass by checking out pics of some ‘cute chicks’ . This, in all likelihood, may not happen now.

Orkut has recently added features that enable you to change the theme of your profile. But this doesn’t really seem to be attracting more people to orkut. There seems to be a stiff competition from Facebook which seems to be getting stronger by the day.