Social Networking: Orkut, Facebook, and Gather - Page 2

Orkut is still an invitation-only website popular among Pakistani students and young people in general. Facebook has been opened to common users only recently and is not yet well-known in this part of the world. Previously, Facebook was for students of educational institutions that were registered with the service. Gather is more erudite and a newer launch.

Orkut does a few things in different ways by trying to deal with different human emotions. It is faster than other similar social networking sites. Unlike most services focusing on promoting a single type of social connection, Orkut allows three aspects of users’ lives: personal, social, and professional. Killers like karma ratings, communities or flagging through “hot” and “crush” lists make it different (call it cool). Everything else is almost the same: the user interface with photo thumbnails and many other features are similar to that of Friendster and its predecessors.

Initially, only 1,200 invitation were sent out, mostly to Google staffers. The rest followed through invitation by initial members. Orkut, like all social networking services, has been designed to promote a set of predetermined behavioural traits instead of enabling users to do what seems most interesting and useful to them.

Facebook is another extremely popular site among students in a more connected world. Now open to everyone, Facebook was founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg of Harvard University. It kept expanding to schools, colleges, and universities over time. None of the Pakistani universities were on the network, though.

On September 11, 2006, Facebook announced that it would officially open to all Internet users, a move that was hardly met with approval by current users. Soon after, Facebook opened registration to anyone with a valid email address. It “is a social utility that connects you to the people around you,” reads the home page of the service. One of my online friends - a design student - told me that the service now lets anyone sign up outside the listed networks. Thus, I joined.

Another comparatively recent entry in the ever-growing list of social networks is Gather. This site has combined features of weblogs and social sites. What’s more, Gather members are paid for their participation with “Gather Points” or cash for most frequent contributors. Though at the moment the “Gather team is working out a system to make payments to members in most countries including Pakistan,” explained a Gather staffer when I asked about payments.

Article Author: S A J Shirazi

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